


Thrantovember

by cathouse_mary



Category: Star Wars: Thrawn Ascendancy Trilogy - Timothy Zahn, Star Wars: Thrawn Series - Timothy Zahn (2017)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, Eventual Smut, Fluff and Smut, Gratuitous Smut, Hurt/Comfort, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Just shipping it like FedEx TBH, M/M, Non-Graphic Smut, Shameless Smut, Smut, Whump, ouch my heart, you get the point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:21:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 24,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27341128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cathouse_mary/pseuds/cathouse_mary
Summary: Thranto prompt challenge as created by queenie-chi-cosplay on tumblr. One prompt per day from November 1-30. COMPLETEDAll challenges completed! I have had an absolute blast meeting so many Thrawn and Chiss fans. Thank you for making it fun! Please let me know in the comments which ones you'd like to see followed up with stand alone fics, and also check out thecompleted Chisstober challengeand the upcomingMerry Chissmas Bingo challenge.
Relationships: Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo/Eli Vanto
Comments: 447
Kudos: 121





	1. Soft

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Queenie Chi Cosplay (QueenieWithABeenie)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenieWithABeenie/gifts).



Soft

Not soft. 

There is nothing about Thrawn that could be construed as soft. Eli knew he had been a commander in the Chiss defense forces, a career officer, and had been willing to be busted back to cadet to join the Empire. He keeps in exacting training, and despite being an age when most humans reach a certain laxitude, there is not a single centi of Thrawn that is not fighting fit. Of course, being Thrawn's aide, Eli has to keep up. Actually he's in the best shape of his entire life from just keeping up - though he skips the ice baths that Thrawn swears by. He's not Chiss or from a world where the possibility of freezing one's balls off is not at all hyperbole but a real problem.

But Eli's found not a weakness, exactly, but certainly an exploitable point.

Chiss have thick skin and a lower core temperature than humans. It helps them survive and thrive on the cold worlds that they inhabit. However, Chiss love warmth, they're attracted to it, and when in bed with Thrawn, Eli can count on a full-body smush into the mattress. The Chiss word for humans is  _ sru'vasha _ \- the warm ones. 

Anyone who loves warmth would love a hot-spring bath, and anyone who grew up in cold and ice would appreciate Orente. So, when the Empire takes its boots off and has a drink, Eli convinces Thrawn that this is the way to go. There is one museum, vast icy seas, no art galleries to speak of - and that is what sells the place. They have three days and Eli wants all. of. them. 

The lodging is a pair of cabins discretely joined by a dogtrot, but one directly over a deep, hot, chalky-blue spring and heated by same. As Eli is putting away his clothing, he hears a splash. Walking through the dogtrot to the other cabin, he sees Thrawn has not bothered to unpack; his clothing tossed over a chair, boots akimbo on the floor, and a towel missing from the stack. Eli goes to the window and sees nothing but falling snowflakes and a blue nose poking out of the lighter blue water. He laughs softly to himself and piles his clothing next to Thrawn's. 

Warm Chiss = Happy Chiss.

Eli enters the water somewhat more sedately, and almost immediately melts. It's been a long, tense run chasing pirates, smugglers, and other spacefaring assholes. They need a break. The tension drains out of his spine as he sinks in to his neck. Thrawn surfaces, pushing his soaked hair back from his face and opening his eyes. His skin has gone intensely and almost a chromatic blue. Eli catches sight of his nictitating membrane pulling back and is surprised - Thrawn must be really relaxed. 

The water is deep enough to swim - Eli pushes off from the wall of the spring and meets Thrawn at a central rock. 

"Good?"

Thrawn's response catches him off guard, it's half throaty purr and half chesty growl. "Very good, Eli Vanto."

Thrawn is practically liquified, muscles loose, eyelids at half mast, snowflakes melting in his hair. In all their years together he has never seen the man this relaxed. Eli smiles at the sight of a softened Chiss. Nobody would believe it. 

"How will I tell the command that I've melted my commanding officer?" he teases.

Thrawn makes no answer, reaching out and drawing Eli closer with a grip on his shoulder. Even his hands are warm.

And his mouth.

And his tongue.

His arms around Eli are not soft.

His cock against Eli's is far from soft.

The softness is an illusion. 

Warm Chiss = Happy Chiss = Amatory Chiss. File for action and retain for future reference.

It's going to be a good, very good, absolutely excellent three days.


	2. Pets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eli should never be surprised, but he is.

Pets

It's eerie.

Carnivores love Thrawn.

The exotic pet trade is a scourge, importing and distributing alien animals over entire ecosystems once the owners realize things such as-

  * Washing bears will literally wash everything they eat and dig hibernation dens through plascrete - collapsing multifloor buildings.
  * Ilarvi eels secrete hyperconcentrated hallucinogens that interact with water to form a psychoactive gas. A colony of eels can reduce a town to a bunch of moon-eyed idiots who won't even feel the hunger that kills them.
  * Beautiful Omnar moon-moths lay eggs - human flesh is particularly good for hatching in.
  * Snowcats start as small kits the size of Eli's shoe - and grow to be 63.5 kilos of dagger-toothed, meter-high meat eaters. Unless one can afford to feed them 14 kilos of raw meat per day, the unwary owner risks becoming dinner. They are popular in the spice trade as guard animals.



Like the one who is rubbing its face with the ten centi-long fangs all over Thrawn right now.

"Who's a good girl?"

The stormtroopers are just staring. Eli looks at the ceiling. His commanding officer is going to give him a fatal coronary or cerebral event one of these days.

"Who's a sweetheart?"

Paws as big as Thrawn's head knock the helmet askew and thump the plastron, then the beast rolls into Commodore Thrawn's lap. The yawn shows teeth as long as Eli's hand. Thrawn rubs the beast's belly that is either distended with young or the last idiot who tried to do what Thrawn is doing right now. Something tells Eli that he'd better source some raw meat and right away - the _Chimaera_ has a new pet.


	3. Cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eli learns about Chiss physiology - lab to follow.

Cold

Faro is muttering that her eyeballs are going to freeze. Eli's freezing his butt off. Yes, he has on thermal underwear, boot liners and toppers over thick socks, heavyweight uniform, plus a parka with a gaiter and gloves. Thrawn, on the other hand, is in his normal uniform plus a coat. Whomever it was who sent them on a wild goose-chase to Hoth needs the proverbial frozen boot to the ass and Eli would be happy to apply it.

Faro bolts for the first shuttle up to the Chimera, absolutely incurious about the ruins here. Eli, however, sticks with Thrawn. 

"These are Chiss ruins." Thrawn is looking closely at the time-worn script under a bas-relief that snow and wind have sanded almost flat. "The ideograms are from a dialect no longer in use, but I can read them. I've never heard of a historical figure named Saganu." 

Eli unlocks his jaw. "What would the Chiss be doing this far from home, sir? Was it a colony?"

"It might have been so, Commander Vanto. Chiss also fought many wars outside of our borders, pursuing enemies as far as it took to neutralize them." Thrawn taps a symbol. "This means 'outpost' or 'advance post' - it would take an expert in Old Middle or Old Late Cheunh to tell for sure."

Eli wonders if Thrawn ever feels homesick. He is, after all, the only one of his kind in the Empire. However, Eli has suspicions that the Chiss roam much further into the Outer Rim than anyone lets on. They had roamed as far as Lysatra in the past, far enough back to be myths, so he doubts that they keep strictly inside their borders. 

Thrawn takes a last look around the ruins. "There's no rebels here, nor have there been. Judging from the reactions, humans would not find it a comfortable place even for a short time."

Eli's teeth chatter before he can form a question and Thrawn looks at him, coming over and slipping a warm - no, a HOT hand inside the hood of Eli's parka. "You're cold - possibly hypothermic."

It's astounding. Thrawn is the cool one and he is the warm one. Chiss body temperature is lower than human average. Right now, Thrawn is hot and Eli is worried - how do you treat a sick Chiss with no Chiss medics? "Are you ill, sir? Do you have a fever?" 

"Chiss are cold-adapted. Thick skin and a substance called thermogenic fat." Thrawn shakes his head, now actively hustling Eli toward his shuttle. "When the temperature drops far enough, our bodies burn it to keep warm."

"We don't have that kind of fat - brown fat - past childhood. It's usually found in hibernating animals, where I'm from." Eli finds himself stuffed into the shuttle - warm, blessedly warm - and into a seat. "You are burning hot, sir."

The hatch seals and the engines come online and Thrawn takes advantage of the noise.

"In that case, Eli Vanto, I will take the opportunity to keep you warm tonight."


	4. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eli visits Lysatra. Doesn't go well.

Home

Well, that sucked.

A decorated lieutenant commander or not, grown-ass man or not, you are always a child to your parents. Eli tucks his datapad under his arm and rubs his face. He's tired, he has a headache, his shoulders and spine are trying to twist into new and interesting configurations. He flew out of Lysatra in the cheap seats on a passenger carrier because that's what was available, and he's changed ships five times, slept on spaceport chairs, and managed to get a shower, de-beard himself, and wash his clothes on The Wheel. The only thing good about the whole trip is the bed he slept in last night.

Eli's far from the golden child of the family. His brother is the firstborn and the one his father chose to cultivate as the head of the family business - and Palo will not hesitate to let everyone know it. His next oldest sister Ava and her husband are utter groundlings. His younger sister Livy is dead-set on being a pilot, so he left her some screw you money and a letter of reference to the pilot's academy at Myomar. Then, the best thing that he could do was leave. He'd been raised in space, almost born in space, and his parents had become groundlings instead of the adventurous and curious people he remembered.

People change. He knows that. It still hurts like hell. 

They argued with him going to the Myomar Academy in the first place. Go to the local university, get an accounting degree, find The Right One. The night he left for the academy was the only fight he ever had with his father. Palo doubted that he'd never rise high enough to even get them an Imperial contract. Now? They're pissed as all hell because he just won't. It's not who he is, it's not what he does, and no greater good is being served to steer contracts to people who are no longer… no longer his family.

The station dust filters must be overloaded, he thinks, rubbing stinging eyes.

He finds a diner, thinking about breakfast and whether he can make the last jump from The Wheel to Coruscant directly, or if he'll have to route through Corellia. Eli squints into the diner's dusty window - for the lower ring of The Wheel, it doesn't look that bad. He's got his uniform and boots rolled in the bottom of his duffel, trying to look like he's freighter crew for hire passing through. He pulls the bill of his cap low over his face, shoving his way through the door and into the ancient diner.

Pancakes. Eggs. Caf. Smells promising. 

He takes a seat, the morning breakfast crowd sullen over their caf, and orders. The pancakes defy expectations - light and fluffy and sopping up two times their weight in syrup. The eggs are reconstituted - possibly from Eli's old prep school. The caf could double as engine cleaner, but the waitdroid brings him a pot and a cup. The galaxy looks much better with caffeine bubbling perkily into his circulatory system.

He needs a plan. He didn't have one when he left. Doesn't have one now. He ought to at least check his comm messages and get the yelling over with. 

Mom. 

Dad.

Dad. 

Palo. 

Ava. 

Ava's husband whathisname. 

Livy crying because he left. 

Palo again with extra helpings of belligerent. 

Three silent discomms. 

Then Thrawn from four days ago. "Your family is… concerned. I am concerned, but not for the same reasons. Call my private comm."

Oh. Great. Eli wonders if it's too early for  _ uieskeh _ in his caf.

Three more discomms before Thrawn again - two days back. "I grow more concerned, Eli Vanto. Are you not listening to your messages?"

Finally, the last message in the queue - sent this morning. "I'd have the pancakes and avoid any of the breakfast meats you are so fond of. The origins are suspect."

Eli closes his eyes and laughs. Thrawn. Of course. He calls back.

"Did you have the pancakes?" The smug blue smartass of his dreams answers. "I found them quite tasty."

Eli laughs harder. "You know I can make it home by myself, right? I'm a big boy. Where are you?"

"Lower ring, dock 227."

"And how did you find me?"

"It was here or Tatooine for a flight to Corellia and on to Coruscant. I saw you when you came in last night, but you were tired and discouraged. Did you sleep well?"

How he missed Thrawn, Eli has no idea. A big blue man built like Thrawn is hard to miss. "I did. I was… not in the best frame of mind." He pays the bill, orders two cafs and a hot chavat to go. "Thanks for coming to get me."

"As someone with his own family issues…" Thrawn trails off. He never talks about his family. 

"I'll be home in ten minutes." And it's good. It fits. Thrawn is his family, and they're just as weird as anything, but family sticks together.

"Welcome home, Eli Vanto. I will see you in ten minutes."


	5. Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's bitter, letting go.

Family

It's bitter, letting go. 

Eli looks at the form on his datapad, then to Thrawn - currently lost in that art-meditation thing he does. It's the usual annual paperwork update for officers, and it should not bother him as much as it does. Next-of-kin is such an innocuous term, but his kin are not people he'd want to be next to, to entrust with what he accumulated in this life as an Imperial officer. Not when so much of that is bound up and intertwined with Thrawn. 

How do you even start to ask?

It's… complicated. Thrawn, so the saying goes, wouldn't say 'shit' if he was standing shoulder deep in it. Laconic did not begin to cover the man's demeanor. Eli, on the other hand, is human - and as a Wild Space human, he is also prone to letting everyone know exactly where they stand. Thrawn views human emotions as a performance art - something he appreciates, but does not generally understand.

Eli looks in the doorway that adjoins their quarters - two suites on either side of a ready room.

Thrawn looks back at him over steepled fingers. "Eli Vanto." Thrawn uses his full name  _ sans _ rank as an acknowledgement, greeting, emphasis. "What troubles you?"

"I didn't mean to disturb you. I'm just filling out the annual update." He has no kin. It hurts and he thinks Thrawn reads his infrared output like his daily briefing. "I… would like to… designate you as my next of kin."

Unless you knew Thrawn very well, you'd never know that he'd just been caught massively off guard. He blinks and his nictitating third eyelid is obvious. 

"I don't have a family any longer. There's a saying I never really got until now. 'Sometimes blood isn't family and sometimes family isn't blood.'" He takes a deep breath around the ache in his chest. "My life has been with the Imperial Navy, with you, and none of my blood has ever cared about understanding that. If something happens to me… and it could… I would be honored if-"

He falters to a stop. Thrawn is back to being as inscrutable as ever - until the corners of his mouth tilt fractionally upward. "You do me a great honor, Eli Vanto. I will strive to be worthy of it."

The relief is so tremendous that it makes Eli giddy. He writes, 'Mitth'raw'nuruodo, known as Thrawn, Admiral of the 96th Task Force.' 

When he looks up again, Thrawn has his stylus and datapad. "What is 'n' for in your name, Eli Vanto?"

"Netan. Eli Netan Vanto." 

Eli watches the stylus loop in the aubresh script. He didn't just… did he? Thrawn looks relieved - as much as he ever allows his face to express his thoughts. Eli hears the chirp of a sent message and does the same for his. For all practical purposes, and some impractical but highly satisfying ones, he and Thrawn are now family.


	6. Command

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thrawn's people are always loyal.

Command

It nettled the joint chiefs just how much loyalty was shown so openly to Thrawn. The **Chimaera** crew started wearing their patches a few months after Thrawn took command, and then the Seventh Fleet adopted the _Chimaera_ logo. People ask to be transferred into the Seventh - but only if they already know someone serving there. The people who would not serve under the command of an alien transferred out already. 

Karyn Faro, a hotheaded and mouthy officer who seemed destined to retire as a captain was promoted to commodore. Eli Vanto, who was thought to have scuppered his career, was leapfrogged from ensign to lieutenant commander and then to commander after actions in battle. Both of them turning out to be diamonds in the rough now well-polished, and as it turned out, impossible to subvert. In a military that increasingly resembled a historical holodrama with backstabbing, infighting, and intrigue, Thrawn's officers - hell, the entire crew - were everything they should be and it pissed off everyone from Tarkin on down. 

Everyone has a weakness, and at a certain level of power one needs leverage. Karyn Faro was a logical weak spot, but while one might shift a captain with minimal fuss, a commodore was harder to unseat without the justification of a court martial. However, now-Commander Vanto, either an extremely dedicated aide (maybe) or fucking his commanding officer (likely or possibly both) was a better target. 

Then, one day, with many plans for Eli Netan Vanto in motion - he disappeared.

Tarkin allegedly had a deep insider on the bridge itself, but all that source could say was that Thrawn refused to speak of Vanto at all. Nor was anyone permitted to speak of him to Thrawn. Leading the top brass to draw four varying conclusions.

  1. Vanto jumped ship for the rebellion after Batonn. 
  2. Lover's spat with Vanto either deserting or floating in space somewhere.
  3. Vanto assassinated or an attempted assassination that sent him into hiding. 
  4. A mission from the very top, one so secret that maybe only one or two people were in on it. 



Naturally, since everyone was looking in the wrong place, they didn't have a clue. Then, with the destruction of the Seventh Fleet and the Death Star (and all of the various plotters), there was a massive power vacuum at the top. It sucked up everything, including the information that there had ever been an Eli Vanto. From time to time, it would come up in quiet meetings, but the Empire had more urgent priorities. 

~

Somewhere in Chiss space (or just outside of it, or maybe well outside of it as the Chiss are cagey about how far they actually wander), the  _ Springhawk _ left orbit with two people whose continued existences might be of interest to the Empire - or as much as is left of it. 

"Commodore Vanto, prepare my ship for hyperspace."

"Yes, Admiral Raw'nuru."


	7. Secret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Never go drinking with Karyn Faro.

Secret

Thrawn is a man who simply doesn't talk unless he has something to say. If, like the humans, he spouted off every time an emotion bounced off a synapse, then he'd never shut up. It's not that he doesn't experience emotion, it's that if there's nothing constructive to do with it, he mentally boxes it up for later. 

Often much later. 

As in, if one is willing to engage in an extended metaphor, there are a lot of mental boxes sitting on dusty shelves. A few have been opened and the contents evaluated, then for lack of any clue what to do with them, boxed up and put back. That's not to say that a few of them have not been sorted to shelves marked 'appropriate' or 'inappropriate' and in some extreme cases 'not to be thought about under any circumstances whatsoever.'  In one box, where the contents have been gone through multiple times, is Eli Vanto. The box is further divided into subjects and submenus. There is the first impression of Eli, shortly after meeting him - which is "How do I calm down this short human?" followed by "Do all humans do that?" and "Unclassifiable - read later."  There are his current impressions of Eli, which is to say, "Incredibly competent and insightful," and "Strategies to ruin those who would take him from me." However, there is one part of the box that he will only peek at once in a while before closing it up and wondering. It's not a secret, exactly - Eli is attractive, even by human standards.

Chiss do have romantic relationships. However, the expression is much more… practical? Pragmatic? Grounded? The overtures are more discreet, and while physical pleasure and the lusty expression of same are definitely part of such relationships, there must be mutuality. And that's what makes Thrawn hesitate. 

Humans will lie in the face of the evidence of one's senses. Their thin skin and bumptious emotions are clearer than a landing beacon, and their scents can be screaming one message while their mouths give another. They have 'tells' that the more physically reserved Chiss do not. Eli Vanto gives Thrawn so many mixed messages that Eli might as well be a  _ pusheen-tyom _ . 

This has been the longest dry spell of his life, albeit one with a partner who is basically fuming off 'ravish me now' pheromones while giving an 'absolutely do not bother me' presentation. It makes for long showers and many sparring bouts with the assassin droids, and some speculation as to his sanity. Ar'alani, bolder than he is, would advise simply pinning Eli to the wall and kissing him, then waiting for the fallout - that being the approach she took with Thrawn. Thrawn is not that bold with his own species, much less a human officer under his command.  So it is with some relief that with a refit scheduled at the Kuat drive yards, Thrawn plans to discreetly spend some time in pleasant horizontal company. However, his plans are absolutely  _ joss'd _ by the issue of Eli filling himself to the eyeballs with alcohol. Nobody with the sense programmed into a mouse droid should ever go drinking with Karyn Faro. 

After he signs off on the refit specifications and the crew is moved to temporary quarters, Thrawn is anticipating a simple, quiet evening on the  _ Chimaera _ before moving to senior officers' quarters to wait out the refit. Instead, Thrawn finds Eli Faro-less, holding onto a bulkhead, and… well… wobbling like a gelatine shot.

"Eli Vanto." Thrawn ventures. He has never seen his lieutenant-commander even slightly intoxicated - not even upon graduation or the aftermath of battle. "Are you unwell?"

Eli slides down the bulkhead, blinking owlishly at Thrawn. "I thank ish wash th' blue drink."

"How many blue drinks did you have?" As if talking to a child.

"Onny one."

"That's not bad-" The drink might have been adulterated in some way. 

"An'a green one, an'a yellow one, an'a purple one, an'a orange one, an'a red one an' one that was red-white-green an' one with caf in it and one that was like  _ chavat _ with cookies in it…"

"Ten. Including the blue one." Thrawn has picked up on some human body language - he resists the urge to palm his face. "Eli Vanto, ten of Karyn Faro's frozen colored drinks with the little plasfilm umbrellas would put me on my knees if not on my face."

"Th' blue one'll get you ev'ry tahm," Eli says somberly.

"Can you walk or do I need to carry you?" Thrawn pauses - cleaning vomit off his boots is not the way he wants to spend the remainder of the evening. "Do you feel sick?"

"Nope. Nottabit." Eli then tries to stand.

It does not go well - or very far - at all.

Thrawn ends up with a protesting Eli across his shoulders, and avoids vomit on his boots by holding his aide over a trash receptacle. He promises Eli that no, nobody's going to know that he drank his body's volume in frozen colorful drinks with little plasfilm umbrellas in them. It's their secret - he promises. Eli weighs little across his shoulders, and is warm in the way humans are to Chiss - and buried in the smell of multiple types of alcohol is the pheromonal scent of desire. Once on the Chimaera, he ducks into the medical bay, passing the stilled medroids to take a 'sober up' packet to administer to Eli.

And Eli is now singing. 

"All the comrades that 'er I had, they're sorry for my goin' away-"

If Thrawn had his datapad to record this, he would. It is priceless.

"An' all the sweethearts that 'er I had, they wished me one more day to stay-"

Hm. 

Thrawn went to the portion of his Eli box that dealt with Eli's… well, there had to have been one or two. Didn't there? Discreet liaisons? Or even - as humans term it - 'fooling around'?

Hm.

He takes Eli back to his own unvacated quarters and unloads him onto the couch. Eli protests and then turns an unusual pale green color. Never underestimate the will of a man to get to the sanitary unit before-

"URK!"

Thrawn winces and moves toward the unconscious man lying in his own vomit on the san floor. Poor Eli. If Eli was less of a… friend? Friend. If Eli was less of a friend, Thrawn would leave him there to take the lesson. Instead he removes his own boots and socks, then stuffs the socks and uniform in the cleaner and proceeds in his black standard issue underwear. 

"You. It is a good thing you are unconscious, Eli Vanto. In Cheunh, the term for a scolding is 'being told things about oneself' - the main thing I would tell you is that you have better sense." He heaves Eli onto his back. Deadweight. Thrawn sighs and unfastens the tunic and belt, stripping them off and chucking both into the corner near the shower. "First, Karyn Faro might like sweet frozen drinks with little plasfilm umbrellas in them, but she can also outdrink Yissa Hammerly and Vult Skerris."

Undershirt has to go. Trousers. Socks, too. The undershorts stay on as a concession to dignity - if there's any dignity to be had in being stripped off by your commanding officer. The boots get thrown next to his own.

"You really did not think this through, did you? It's unlike you." He lifts Vanto and carefully puts him in the shower facing away from the showerhead. He shifts the temperature to cold. "And in advance - sorry." 

Throwing the shower to full pressure, he steps back. Eli Vanto wakes up with an epithet that ought to melt durasteel. He seems not to know where he is until - suddenly - he does and simply sits on the floor of the shower with one hand over his blazingly scarlet face. 

"Fuck fuckity fucking fuck dammit fuck." He takes his hand away from his eyes, looks at Thrawn. Then he puts it back. "Please be a dream. Please be a dream." Takes his hand away and looks again. "Fuck. And also fuck." 

"Welcome back, Eli Vanto." Not sober by a longshot, but conscious and Thrawn does worry that someday a human may be actually embarrassed to death. "Do you remember what happened?"

"Never drink with Faro and, more than that, never drink what she's drinking."

"Good start."

"Did I barf all over your 'fresher?"

"Only a small part of it." 

"Did you strip me off?"

"Yes."

"How bad is my uniform?"

"A heavy-duty cleaning cycle out to handle it."

"How bad is my judgement?"

"Epic."

"How much trouble am I in?"

"None." Thrawn says gently. Awareness did not merit a lecture. "Clean off, rinse your mouth. I'll find you something of mine to wear - unless there's anything left in your quarters?"

"No, sir. I didn't leave anything." 

Thrawn leaves him to it, finding the standard issue sleepwear and putting it on the sink. He himself usually just slept naked, but for propriety's sake he puts on a robe. Eli was embarrassed enough and if Thrawn was going to be honest, he might not stand a chance against the 'ravish me now' pheromones that had started again when Eli regained consciousness. Eli came out in short order, having donned only the shirt - which hung the middle of his thighs. 

"Your biceps are as big as my neck, sir." 

Thrawn put aside his datapad. "Are you warm enough?" Human skin was so thin, and without insulating layers of thermogenic fat. 

Unaccountably, Eli's infrared output flared from hairline to chest. "Warm enough for sure."

"There's a sober-up packet if you want it." Thrawn considers him now. There might be no better time to ask the questions he has. "I have questions, Eli Vanto." 

Bright red strips burn across Eli's cheeks. "I just went drinking with Faro and Hammerly, I-"

"Your pheromones indicate a strong sexual attraction." A pause to look at Eli's infrared and interpret it. "If you syncope, I will throw you back in the shower."

"Wait. You never mentioned pheromones." Eli is faintly accusatory.

"I did not." Thrawn agrees. "Not the point of the conversation."

"So I've been running around, punching you in the nose with…" Eli puts his face in his hand again. 

"It is a pleasant scent. Very pleasant." He might see a human die of embarrassment tonight. "I wish to… instigate."

Eli nearly falls onto the couch. "Wait. With me?"

"Yes, with you. But this is something we should talk about when you're sober, Eli Vanto." Thrawn is regretful. "I am sorry to have brought it up, but there are some conversations you avoid."

Eli holds very still then asks, "Sobriety pack?"

Thrawn takes it from the table next to the couch and hands it over. 

"How long does it usually take to work?"

"Ten to fifteen minutes," Thrawn replies.

"Don't go anywhere. I'll be right back." Eli takes the packet and walks back to the san unit. He looks back, this time with an open enjoyment from looking at Thrawn. "Don't go anywhere."

Thrawn is amused. "I will not." 

The door to the san unit shuts and he hears a faint sound of disgust at the oral dose then a soft 'ow' at the injection. 

"Still there?" Eli calls.

"Still here." Thrawn replies. 

Minutes pass and- "Sir? Did you actually carry me back here?"

"You were incapacitated."

"And I barfed in a trash bin?"

"Again - incapacitated." 

Thrawn looks at the chrono as the shower starts again, then picks up his datapad. 

Fifteen minutes later, the door reopens with steam and pheromones and Eli in a towel. Thrawn takes a good, long look as Eli pads barefoot to the couch and then, instead of asking Thrawn to move his feet, simply lies down next to him.

"Pheromone thing going on?"

Thrawn sets aside his datapad, turning to face Eli and investigating the contour of his ribcage with one hand. "Like an oncoming storm." 

It is like being punched in the nose, as Eli said, but it's an enjoyable punch in the nose. Thrawn can't help himself, nuzzling the spots where that scent seeps most potently. Eli burns brightly, warmly as Thrawn pulls him closer, the towel loosening from around Eli's hips. 


	8. Society

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Voluntold socialization. Willful noncompliance.

Society

Thrawn, when he sets his mind to it, is so stubborn that it makes Eli cuss. For example, on Coruscant, there are societal expectations that senior, decorated officers will socialize at a variety of events held during Ascension Week. Granted, Wulff Yularen never met a party he wouldn't crash - he called it intelligence gathering under the guise of free food and alcohol. He'd been an admiral in the Clone Wars and was now a colonel in the Imperial Security Bureau, and if there was someone on Coruscant he didn't know that meant that they had not yet been born. Yularen stuck himself to Thrawn and networked Eli's commanding officer like he'd never been networked before. 

And Thrawn has reached the stage at which the stubborn kicks in and kicks in hard.

"Are you ready?" Eli is fighting an action with the collar on his dress uniform as he walks from his side of the suite into the main room. No Thrawn.

"No."

Whooboy. Here we go. He wrestles the starched collar into place and seals the front of his tunic. "Are you getting ready?"

"No."

It can be like pulling teeth. "Why are you not getting ready?"

"My uniform's in the cleaner." Said deadpan. 

"You have more than one uniform." Eli maintains, knowing that Thrawn is in the mood to do an almighty jerking of chains. Too much socialization and society makes Thrawn… well… ornery.

Still deadpan, Thrawn replies, "All of them are in the cleaner."

"So they'll be out in twenty minutes and we can go." Their boots are standing polished and Eli sits to put his on.

And a third deadpan. "The cleaner's broken."

_ You have got to be kidding me. _

"You realize that this is entirely too providential. All of your uniforms happen to be in the cleaner and the cleaner happens to malfunction." Eli looks at Thrawn's open door. His brain next presents the question of what Thrawn is wearing if not a uniform. He bumps the question from his tongue. "Have you called maintenance?"

"Of course."

"And what did they say?" Pulling! Teeth! 

"They'll get to it eventually. It's Ascension Week."

Eli is now looking at the ceiling. Should he cajole or gently bludgeon? He's saved from that decision by the comm chiming and goes to answer it. Lieutenant Commander Airal Sevvanes, Grand Admiral Tedoros' aide, looks roughly the way he feels. Tedoros and Thrawn have taken to standing together, backs to the company, heads inclined toward one another. They do not actually talk, but people give them a wide enough berth that nobody really knows that. 

"Lieutenant Commander Vanto."

"Lieutenant Commander Sevvanes."

"Is Admiral Thrawn available to speak with Grand Admiral Tedoros?"

"Of course. A moment, please." 

Thrawn comes out of his bedroom in working uniform trousers and a black undershirt. Eli takes a deep breath then suspends what he has to say when the Grand Admiral's face fills the flatscreen. He's a man who has been through five wars, has a face like tanned leather and the attitude of a man wearing sandpaper underwear. Nobody crosses him, not because they are afraid they'll end up dead, but because they're afraid that they won't.

"Thrawn. At ease." Tedoros tilts his head. "Why aren't you dressed?"

"A malfunction of the cleaner - all of my uniforms were in it." Thrawn is as deadpan as ever.

"Indeed. Unfortunate." The grand admiral is just as deadpan.

"Indeed, sir."

A very long pause and then Tedoros asks, "How-?"

"Spanner."

"Please hold, Admiral. I seem to have spilled caf on my tunic."

"Yes, sir."

Eli puts his face in his hands, laughing silently. He can hear Sevvanes protesting, and then the sound of overstressed metal giving way, followed by a mad grinding sound - mercifully short.

The admiral returns shortly, brown eyes sparkling with mirth. "Well. How terrible. My uniforms have met the same fate." 

Eli can see Sevvanes' face over the Grand Admiral's shoulder, mouthing things that would get her dinged for insubordination were she to voice them. 

"Colonel Yularen won't be missing us, sir." Thrawn offers, "I understand he's opted to visit… a mutual friend." 

Thrawn's lips twitch and Eli changes what he was going to say into a cough. Thrawn's friend is a woman more than capable of handling Yularen. She'll give the man a merry chase, leading him by the nose the entire way, before letting him catch her.

"Well, then." Tedoros looks as if he knows the lady in question - who collects men in uniform like bracelets on her shapely arm. "I wish him luck - at his age that's bound to be a wild ride. I wish you a more-" His gaze slides to Eli. "- peaceful evening. Until tomorrow, Admiral, Lieutenant Commander."

Both he and Thrawn straighten to attention as the Grand Admiral discomms, with Sevvanes with her arms crossed over her chest and looking like Wrath itself. Eli turns to face Thrawn, who has one eyebrow raised at him.

"You." Eli says, loosening his collar, then opening the strip of his dress tunic. 

Thrawn raises his other eyebrow to join them together in an attempt at innocence. "A confluence of circumstances." 

Eli balls up the tunic with the belt and throws them in the general direction of his doorway. "What am I going to do with you?"

Thrawn comes toward him, skin darkening to a deeper blue along his cheekbones and the tips of his ears. "I can make some suggestions. Several."

"I'm sure that you can." Eli pulls him in by the waist of his trousers, open his mouth for the kiss he wants and throwing away the argument he really doesn't. Thrawn lifts him up as their lips meet and then Eli decides that tonight is actually perfect for staying in.


	9. First Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One small change.

First Kiss

"A day of honor, Eli Vanto." Ar'alani reminds him.

The Chiss reserve displays of emotion for family or those to whom they are close. They can come across as unfeeling or cold, but they are very far from that.

He murmurs in return, "A day of honor."

Thrawn is waiting at the end of a long aisle, ranks of the Chiss Expansionary Defense Forces standing to either side at silent attention. A smaller, colorful knot of subdued aristocra stand off to one side - appropriately isolated. They have a right to be here, but nobody wished to suffer their presence.

Eli and Ar'alani stand in their dress uniforms, then by a common accord start their walk down the hard stone floor, the sound of their boots crisp against the cold summer sky. The Chiss hold no gods, and while they believe in the Force, it's only because they have seen it operate. Their milestone ceremonies are always solemn, from birth onward the Chiss remind themselves that it's a hard universe, with no miracles or saviors. Their flinty self-reliance is the hardest thing about them, but their acceptance of Eli by the CEDF has been one of the softest. To them and to Ar'alani, Eli has become largely a Chiss - a _moactan teel_ kinsman they buffer and protect. Eli schools his face, his demeanor, even as he disconnects from a rising tide of emotion. A day of honor, for him and for Thrawn. He will not let it be anything less. It's been a long run and a good run, even if it had some bad points. He would do it over again, with only one change, and that change might have changed everything.

At the end of the aisle, he smiles at Thrawn then bends and presses a kiss - a first kiss and a last kiss - to his cold lips. There is no miracle to open his eyes, no savior to drive the death from his body. If Eli had known that he could lose him again - forever, this time - he would have kissed him long ago.


	10. Miscommunication

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thrawn forgot to tell Eli something.

Miscommunication

In the first place, how did Thrawn ever get in trouble with the Ascendancy? Between Admiral Ar'alani, Colonel Thalias, and Senior Captain Che'ri - how would he have managed it? Much less had the balls to manage it? Once Eli and Ar'alani returned to the Ascendancy, it was like a gravitational pull from all three of them. 

And Ar'alani evidently told them about the journal. 

Thrawn's journal that is in Eli's possession. 

And NO. Nobody is reading that but for him, thank you.

Blast her.

Also, blast Thrawn for NOT telling him what gifting a journal to another means among the Chiss. Eli might not be the most socially well-adjusted man in uniform, but one might think that Thrawn would tell him that it's effectively an engagement gift. Apparently, when one meant to espouse another, such a gift allowed the spouses to see just what they were getting into. It's an egregious miscommunication even for Thrawn, who is emotionally reserved even for a Chiss.

So, it's only fair that Eli begins a journal of his own, and makes his communication perfectly clear. The first paragraph he taps out in Sy Bisti.

"Ar'alani found out about the journal, and told me what it means. Thalias and Che'ri have all but adopted me. When I see you next, I will give you my own journal and I want you to understand me very clearly. I want you in my life and the next time you try to send me away, I will do something incredibly violent. I never want to miss your presence in my life the way that I do now."


	11. Culture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eli is finding out more about Chiss culture.

Culture

Eli's full immersion in Chiss culture did not start until they had Thrawn back. He'd been granted a year and a day of mourning when Thrawn disappeared and was presumed dead. Now that he's back… well… journals.

"You kind of neglected to mention, you know? Ar'alani almost jumped over my desk at me when she realized what it was." Chiss women are fierce and persistent. "Then she set Thalias and Che'ri on me."

"It was not a deliberate omission." Thrawn's fingers caress the back of his palm and wrist. "My apologies."

Yeah. Well, so far as Eli knows there are no academic courses on handling feelings. Perhaps especially not at Chiss military academies. He and Thrawn are still aboard the  _ Steadfast _ , largely because the admiral refuses to let them out of her immediate sphere of influence. So they lie in bed, paging through each other's journals, reading sections to each other and seeking further elucidation. They have time, as the Mitth run around shooting themselves in the collective foot, then proceed to ram that foot right into their collective mouths. As Thrawn says, never regret the stupidity of your enemies.

"Then there's Thalias. She's talked to me about… I can't manage the Cheunh, but the Sy Bisti term is 'espousing.'"

Thrawn's eyebrow makes a steep ascent. "Is she your  _ mes'ur'ven'tai _ ?"

"And I'm not going to touch that one - that's three glottal stops and who knows what I'd say if I mispronounced it?"

"It is a female relative who advocates for you in spousal negotiations."

Eli can feel his eyes go the approximate size of his caf mug. "It's a little simpler, the way humans do it. Some folks have a big party, religious folk throw in a lot of rituals, other times they just go to the registrar and sign the documents."

"Chiss families are… complicated. Exclusive espousals are rare, and restrict the gene pool." Thrawn marks his place in Eli's journal. "Think of a large molecule and the different bonds between each component. While they are all interconnected, they are not connected in the same way." 

"Ar'alani explained some of it - blood, cousin, ranking distant, trial-born, and merit-adoptive." If anything, Eli had been adopted by the Steadfast - a  _ moactan teel _ kinsman. "The first three are in some way related by blood, but the other two bring new genes into the pool." He pauses. "Are… your genes in the pool?"

Thrawn shakes his head. "I am too troublesome. So, though I am merit-adoptive, no." A measuring look from Thrawn results in a question that nobody had ever asked. "And have you sired a child, Eli Vanto?"

The Chiss have a marvelous time making him blush. He swears it's a sport. "No. Not knowingly. I mean, I had an implant but I… um… never. I mean in secondary school, yes, but-"

"That is regretful. I would take comfort in your genes pooled somewhere, for you are good, kind, and brilliant and there ought to be more of you." 

Now the blush was just as intense but for a different reason. 

"I'm sorry they think you're troublesome, and I don't think it's fair. You're brilliant and you were exiled for ten damn years." Hey. Thalias seems to be negotiating for him, so he might ask a few questions. "There ought to be more of you, too."

Thrawn rolls, making himself comfortable atop Eli. "According to Ar'alani and Ba'kif, one of me is more than enough."


	12. Off Guard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thrawn told Eli to improvise. 
> 
> Posting this niblet early because work is going to be insane tomorrow.

Off Guard

A couple of assassination attempts and missions gone awry will change one's mind about almost anything. It changes Eli's mind about Thrawn's offer of training him in Chiss-style martial arts. The three months at Royal Imperial didn't do much to brush him up on the somewhat lacking expertise of Myomar, and Thrawn moved fast. More than anything, that brings home to Eli that the Chiss had a career that had probably started when Eli was riding a tricycle. 

And Eli learns that the Chiss fight hard and dirty. Thrawn teaches him grappling, and a variety of martial arts using kicks and punches or thrown knees and elbows. He learns the term 'Rentor kiss' - or Rentor _svass_ \- which meant smashing your forehead into your opponent's nose. Gouging out eyeballs with thumbs made him queasy when he thought about it. He learns that the butt of a blaster rifle can take out an opponent just as surely as a bolt. Then there are stick fighting styles, pressure points, and even knife fighting. 

Thrawn talks about the importance of improvising in a fight, and that's when-

When Eli-

When Eli bites his commanding officer on the ass. 

It is not often that Thrawn is caught off guard, the man sleeps no more than four hours at a stretch unless he's injured. But Thrawn has him in an arm bar and is pinching him off through the middle with his thighs and Eli is pretzeled. It's not a nip, but a full-on chomp and Thrawn actually grunts. Eli just freezes in place with his brain screaming at him, "WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST DO?" 

Thrawn looks over his shoulder and down at him. "Really, Commander Vanto?"


	13. Cuddles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With a side of whump.

Cuddles

It takes Eli, Faro, Hammerly, and six highly pissed off Death Troopers to find Thrawn. 

It takes Yularen with Vader at his back ten minutes to crack the traitor they bring him, and one minute for Vader to kill him after he's squeezed dry. 

The arrest warrants for General Hiroe and Moff Gess take five minutes to issue, and the operation snowballs from there. It does not do Eli any good when Yularen tells him that it was a threat against Eli that lured Thrawn away from his security detail. The resulting assassination attempt ended in a fight that left a number of dead bounty hunters and underworld hitters scattered around level 1313.  Eli and the others had not needed to rescue Thrawn, exactly. Like a wounded animal, Thrawn had gone to ground - holed up in an abandoned chop shop, dazed from concussion, painful injuries, and blood loss.

"Shock is the body's response that lets you crawl off and find a safe place to heal or die." One of the troopers said, adding, "He doesn't get to die until he's well enough for us to chew his ass over this." 

Thrawn was not conscious when they found him. Two concussions, injuries consistent with being hit by or jumping from an airspeeder, hairline fractures to the zygoma and orbital, blaster burns, internal contusions. On Vader's advice they threw Thrawn in a bacta tank, put the tank on a gunboat, and got Thrawn the hell out of there to safety aboard the _Chimaera_.  Treating Thrawn is not easy since, as the only Chiss in the entire damn Imperial Navy, there are no real treatment protocols. Near-human or human-derivative species are not human, and Chiss respond differently to standard therapeutic approaches. The droids and clinicians find out about Chiss physiology the hard way and Thrawn is apparently absolute hell to anesthetize. In a week he's out of the tank, in a day he is out of the medbay - although this is NOT with the approval of his clinicians. He wrapped himself in a bedsheet and walked himself back to his quarters. 

And this is where Eli finds himself, dinner tray and meds bag in hand, working up the nerve. He hits the comm with his elbow. No answer. Lock indicator red. He hits it again and then says, "Sir? I am standing out here until you open the damn door - and you know I'll do it, too."

Thrawn, when being obstinate, is the immovable object. Eli knows he is not the irresistible force - but he can be an annoying one. He keeps it up until the lock indicator turns green, and he walks into Thrawn's outer office, then into the inner office, then into the sitting area of his private quarters - where he gets a good look at glowing red eyes in the pitch black of the bedroom. A wounded animal indeed.

"This is dinner, sir. You are going to eat it. These are your prescriptions. You are going to take them. These are your bacta patches. I am going to put them on you." Eli sets the lot on the table, then crosses his arms and firms up his heels on the deck. "Then I am going to yell at you for ditching the Death Troopers - who are supposed to be protecting you, Admiral - because you wanted to protect me. I can't tell one from the other, but I am here to tell you, sir, that they are  _ pissed _ ."

That sounded like a growl. Eli can't be sure. 

"I can come in there, or you can come out here. That's the only choice I am giving you in the matter, sir." The glowing red eyes narrow to slits. Eli tries not to sweat. "You did lead Yularen and Vader to a nest of vipers - now a lot of dead snakes. However, Colonel Yularen said to tell you that the Empire is not growing flag officers on trees and the next time you ditch your detail, he's sending you a governess."

"Why would he send a governor?" Thrawn's voice is rusty from the intubation, but at least he's talking.

"Governess. It's different." Not telling him how right now. Eli picks up the tray and moves purposefully toward the bedroom. "Landry made that noodle soup you like - not as spicy so it won't hurt your throat. Can I get some light here, sir?"

The lights do come up, but not all the way and Eli almost puts down the tray to hit the med call button. Thrawn is in nothing but a pair of sleepwear bottoms and a black undershirt, still in rough shape and looking feral enough to dismantle anyone trying to tank him. Eli is sympathetic, but not enough to let it slide. 

"I'm going to tell you - you look in rough shape, sir."

"Aware, Eli Vanto." Thrawn holds his hands out for the soup.

The use of his whole name signals a shift from official to personal and Eli relaxes as he hands it over. "You're supposed to take two of these with food - pain relief."

Thrawn is already tipping the bowl to his lips - Chiss style, he supposes - but manages to give Eli a glare over the rim of it. 

"If you don't rest, you won't heal." He is not having any stoic bullshit today, thank you. "And if you give me any lip, I'll let Karyn Faro in here. She has words for you, too."

Eli has to hand it to Thrawn, who is as wary of his XO's temper as anyone. He thinks it through and holds out his hand. "She will need to take a number. One dose - if I still need the other in an hour, I will take it."

"Thirty minutes." Eli digs in. He can see the pain in the set of the jaw, the line between Thrawn's eyebrows, the deliberate movements. At Thrawn's nod, Eli knows that the pain is considerable. "All right."

The soup goes first - the broth downed first and then the noodles and cutlet consumed. Electrolyte and mineral caps get washed down with water and the painkiller. Then-

"Patch time." Eli has heard the term 'stink eye' and that's what he's getting from Thrawn. "You need these to heal. They can't tank you again."

No mistake. Thrawn growls.

"Shirt off. You've done this for me enough." Thrawn holds out his hand for the patches. "Sir, I saw you when they brought you in. I  _ know _ how bad it is."

"In the way of such things, it looks worse now." Thrawn has been injured before, seriously enough to leave scars that Eli has seen close up. 

Eli does not let go of the patches. "You've seen me about the same. The medics said you were either hit by an airspeeder or jumped out of one." 

Thrawn uses one arm to remove the undershirt and Eli reminds himself that the perpetrators are dead. He can't reanimate them and kill them for this. The bruising covers the left side from shoulder to hip, there are barely healed deep gashes to his thigh when the bottoms come off. A stab wound sits in the middle of paler-blue blaster burn. 

"All of them are dead?" Eli asks, keeping his voice steady.

"All of them, Eli Vanto."

Eli is about to cover about a third of Thrawn in bacta patches. Usually when he has his hands on Thrawn it's a lot more fun. He can take the good with the bad, but will shoot anyone who tries to keep Thrawn from resting. It is, however, good to note that when he does put his hands on Thrawn, that his lover and CO is not too tired to go partially erect.

Eli raises his eyes and looks right at Thrawn. "No. Bed rest. As in  _ resting _ while in bed."

Thrawn catches one of his hands, fingers twining. "It would be restful. I promise to sleep after."

Thrawn after orgasm is not sleepy. He's energized and his favorite thing is reviving Eli for more orgasms. 

"How about this - that painkiller is working. If you're still awake in 30 minutes, I promise-" He takes off his tunic and boots, sitting on the bed. "-to make you very rested."

Thrawn looks doubtful but reaches for his datapad and then actually sets the timer. "Thirty minutes, Eli Vanto."

"Thirty." Eli stretches out and pats the headrest that Chiss use instead of a pillow. "Come on, get in."

With some grumbling, Thrawn gets into bed - though not dressed - and under the blanket. Eli takes out his own datapad, and over the next twenty minutes watches Thrawn fight sleep like it's his enemy, giving Eli a fuzzed but accusing look before the narcotic closes his eyes. 

Eli sets aside his datapad, props up that side of the mattress so that Thrawn won't roll over on his ribs, returns the room to full dark, and then slides into bed. Thrawn does not look much softer when he sleeps, but he does look more peaceful. As soon as he pulls the blanket up, Thrawn is fitting himself against Eli's back, nose planted in his hair, arm around Eli's waist. Eli sets the do-not-disturb on the lock, twines his fingers with Thrawn's and settles in for a long watch.


	14. Date Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's just not a lot to do on a star destroyer.

Date Night

In retrospect, Thrawn should have known what he was getting into. As roommates at Royal Imperial, he would wake up to Eli Vanto under the bedcovers in his bunk - not studying, not self-pleasuring, but gaming. Wild games of fantasy and simulated battle, sometimes with massive player bases kept Eli on raids or other actions far into the night. Often, Thrawn would give a solid kick to the top bunk and tell Eli to, "Get some sleep so that I can get some sleep."

In the BOQ after graduation as they awaited their assignments, Eli used his first pay to buy the components for an build a 'gaming rig.' The rig was augmented with headphones when the neighbors complained and Thrawn woke from a dead sleep trying to get to a battlestation that wasn't there. Their assignments left them on a variety of ships, but almost always roomed together until they became senior officers - meaning until Eli was made Lieutenant Commander. 

Thrawn has to admit on many of their assignments, there has not been much to do together outside of duty hours. However, he has seen other pairings among his crew do 'date night' - it takes a tremendous amount of covert reading to figure out. Eli has been keeping tabs open on a new game release, updating his rig, anticipating the newest version of his favorite gaming world. 

Thrawn is not sure what to think about it. The Empire is a force for order and law, but this game is all about outlawry set in the lower levels of Coruscant. The protagonists are smugglers, thieves, bounty hunters, and members of organized criminal gangs. Eli is lawful, orderly, methodical, and brilliant - would he really want to masquerade as the people they are supposed to be working against? He does some more reading, unable to make much of the confusing mishmash and settles in to think it out. It might be a form of escape, or a way of understanding the minds of those they oppose - a type of thought experiment. 

Thrawn orders the game and the hardware that goes with it. It's not much on his salary, but it would be a neat chunk out of Eli's. He figures it out, sets it up, and leaves it in his sitting area without comment. Eli at the academy had a particular fondness for a starchy disc with a bewildering number toppings on it and a drink that was essentially equal parts caffeine, flavored sugar, and carbonated water. It's as he returns to his quarters with same that he discovers that Eli has discovered his gift.

He discovers this by being attack… kissed? 

_ Kissed = Good / Attacked = ? _

To the deck? 

Eli is sitting on his chest, beaming down at him. "Grand Theft: Coruscant Underworld! I can't believe you got me that!"

"I remembered that you liked the game at the academy - and there's not too much to do aboard in off hours." Thrawn tries for dignity - hard to achieve when you have just been kiss-attacked to the deck - on the other hand, he can get his hands on Eli's thighs. "I thought you might teach me how to play."

"I remember your big blue foot railing me in the butt from the bottom bunk and telling me to go to sleep, too."

"Valid. We were being rammed through three years of education in three months."

Eli does not budge from his chest. "There's a new mode where you can have someone in the airspeeder with you. I'll fly and you can shoot."

"Deal. But you have to get off my chest or the starch disc will get cold."

Eli leans in, lips brushing his. "I can reheat it. Later."

"Later it is."


	15. Loss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eli's 30th natal day - a journal entry.

Loss

Personal Journal Entry: Eli Vanto: Junior Captain, CEDF _Steadfast_. 

Thrawn  was is over a decade older than I am. He told me that in progress through life each being finds a set of truths for oneself. If you arrive at the age of thirty with no further idea of what you are doing than you did at 17, you have a problem. 

Well, I'm 30 today and Thrawn has now been listed as missing/presumed KIA for four years. The Empire has crumbled, the rebels have not so much won as moved in, and every Imperial officer and trooper has been declared a war criminal - including me, also on the missing/presumed KIA list. The ability to win battles does not translate into ability to govern, and I expect another war or six over the next decade. Even if I could go back, I wouldn't - I am home.

Ar'alani gave me a sweetcake for my natal day, and another blank book for journaling. I am much more voluble than Thrawn either on flimsi or in person. This is my third book, first entry. I hope someday that Thrawn will read my journal as I have read and treasure his. And, future Ar'alani - I know you are reading this - if that day comes, you won't have to knock him down and sit on him to do it. Just ask. Anyway, that truth is heavy today and I'm writing to lessen the pressure on my brain. 

  * Love does not stop because the one you love is not there to be loved. 



That's it. It might sound simple, but it's brutal. The love and admiration and friendship I have for Thrawn is ongoing, with all of these emotions pouring out into the void where he was in my life and my self - my soul, perhaps, if I have one. That's the good part - if you can still feel, you're still alive, there is hope, and I hold onto that. The bad part is that all of that is shot through with grief - that he's not here with me, that he might not be alive (which in the darkest times I make myself admit). Sometimes I think knowing would be better than not knowing, other times I think that the wrong knowing would kill me. 

So, here I am - a CEDF captain and Ar'alani's second officer. On bad days I feel as if I'm trying to live with a blaster bolt to the chest. On good days, it's barbed wire around my heart. When I sleep and dream, I see Thrawn, and nightmare or good dream, I am ever and always glad to see him. 

It's taken a long time, a huge amount of research, but maybe - a thin maybe - I have a way forward. Purrgil are a migratory species. Migratory species have migration routes and we have the Chimaera's last trajectory. I've pasted together every sighting I can find. If I can convince Ar'alani and she can convince Ba'kif and Ja'fosk, then just maybe we can find him or-

I'm not letting myself think of that. 

So this love that is missing the one to be loved will just keep pouring out of me. The need to see him, hear him, yell at him for an entire year non-stop, and get my arms around him and never let go will be with me until we find him, or until I see him in the next life.

Eli


	16. Fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eli Vanto has a spicy temper.

Fight

At least part of Thrawn's first year in the Imperial Navy is spent learning to calm Eli Vanto down. Like all young ones, even if full grown, he is excitable. Everything must be answered now, resolved now - but that's not how life or anything else works. Eli is comfortable in the immediacy and predictability of his numbers and data. Like all young officers, Eli is topped up on theory but empty of practice. He is not yet a warrior, but he will be, and a great one.

If Thrawn can just calm him down.

Eli has a spicy temper and it's work, even if Thrawn has the benefit of infrared vision that parses the roiling ocean of human thoughts and feelings. He wonders, briefly, if Eli had a lover that Thrawn has inadvertently parted him from. Another insult flies, and while Thrawn notes it, he does not act on it. This rouses Eli's temper and there is another argument where Eli does all of the arguing and Thrawn works on getting the young man to think instead of just react.  Even coming up on graduation, their enemies keeping their heads low, Eli's temper lives at a simmer. Their first assignment causes a minor explosion, but for the most part their bunking together seems peaceful. However, their crewmates eventually decide that picking at Thrawn does no good - there's no insubordinate explosions - so Eli becomes their target. 

Eli is better at controlling his temper than he was in their first days, but one evening he does something only the young and rash do. He punches a durasteel wall in their bunk room and immediately goes to his knees, cradling his hand. Thrawn grabs the aid kit, hoists Eli to his bunk and takes his hand. And that… that quiets him down. 

"You do not need to punch walls, Eli Vanto," Thrawn chides. "You harm only yourself."

Bacta spray - he's relieved that Lesser Space has it - starts the healing, but those small fractures in his bones will take a full day at least. Thrawn initiates coldpacking, tape, and testing to see if Eli's also sprained his wrist. All the while Eli is uncharacteristically quiet, his infrared signature going absolutely wild - lit up like a Canto Bight slot machine, as he would say. In fact, it looks as if-

And then Eli Vanto lays one on him.

Oh. Well. That explains a few things.

Not a punch, or a mouth that goes off in anger, but a kiss. 

And if it is Eli's first time kissing another male, he's doing a good job of it. The tension drops from Eli's shoulders, his undamaged hand pulling Thrawn deeper into the kiss. 

And Thrawn discovers the best possible way to calm Eli Vanto down.


	17. Gift Fic for Queenie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, what if Eli was not the first human in the Ascendancy? Missing a prompt, so did a gift fic for Queenie.

Quick Gift Fic for Queenie

When Thrawn returned to the  _ Springhawk _ , he came with new technology stolen from the Lesser Galaxy faction called 'Separatists' - a new method of shielding, and some mechanicals - but also with two beings. Che'ri wouldn't say a word about it, commenting only that she would talk to Admiral Ar'alani or General Ba'kif. The beings were badly injured, taken off in a blacked-out bacta tank, and sequestered immediately in the medbay. Thrawn would not crack his teeth on it, and the medical personnel were tight-lipped. They carefully sneak into lesser space, recover two ships, and during the whole thing Samakro looks as if he's been taking lessons in stoneface from Thrawn.

Then they slip back to the Ascendancy, holding position for a week before Admiral Ar'alani arrives with her fleet and Ba'kif aboard his  _ Guardian _ . That's when everyone knows that the _ yit _ is about to hit the fan once more for their commanding officer. The two shuttle over to the  _ Springhawk _ and some of the crew gossip that both rankers were looking at Thrawn as if they had much to tell him about himself*. The corridors to the medbay are unusually busy, and chief medical officer Akima'ril'yen tells everyone about themselves and clears out the  _ lookilu _ . It's going to be a long shift, Samakro thinks, and he just hopes that Thrawn is in one piece at the end of it.

~

In the sequestered medbay, Ar'alani and Ba'kif receive a briefing on two young humans recovering from serious injuries. Thrawn reports the planet was a source of cortosis - used to make Chiss uniforms - but that the Separatists neutralized the planet before Jedi General Skywalker and Senator Padme Amidala could. He and Che'ri evacuated both, badly injured, and began treatment. However, there are - of course - complications. Ar'alani grumbles that she knew she could trust the problem child to find more problem children. 

The 'complication' - explained by the chief medical officer - is simple but also enormously complicated.

"With child? The female is gravid?" Ar'alani says nothing for a full five minutes after that. Nobody dares to speak, not even Ba'kif.

"The human male is also the member of a quasi-military religious order or a quasi-religious militia that either demands celibacy or discourages procreation - I'm not sure which." Thrawn finally breaks the silence. "In either case, it didn't work."

"And you brought them back why?" Ba'kif rumbles, his beefy arms crossed on his chest and looking like an oncoming storm. 

"They aided me in the actions included in my report. It would have been a moral wrong to leave them incapacitated and an ethical one since I am not certain they are actual adults." Thrawn replies. "They have highly questionable judgement and act largely from emotion instead of logic. How they made the young man a general in the Republican army, I can't begin to tell you. And there is one other issue."

"Because of course there is." Ar'alani literally growls. "What is it?"

"The young man is a sky-walker, named for it and with the ability. A grown male sky-walker." Thrawn pauses and then fully commits. "The sky-walkers vouch for it. They have asked repeatedly about Anakin Skywalker, despite never having seen him."

It was not the first time that Thrawn has rendered Ar'alani or Ba'kif speechless, but it is the first time that he's managed utterly gobsmack both at the same time.

~

The primary complaint about the two humans - who have decided to stay though Padme's childbearing - is that the Chiss naming conventions are set wholly on their ear. Padme Amidala should be Amidala'pad'may but it refuses to be rendered into an appropriate core name - and it's likewise with Anakin Skywalker. Finally, everyone gives in and calls them Anakin and Padme.

~

"Are you he?" Admiral Ar'alani asks.

Eli replies, "I am he."

When the shuttle docks aboard the Steadfast, he expects to be met by the Admiral and her first officer, and he is. He does not expect to be met by another human - a tall man with shaggy, sandy brown hair flecked with silver - introduced as Captain Anakin. 

"Thrawn and I go way back to when I was even younger than you are." The accent is Core, and he is easily as big as Thrawn.

"How long have you been in the Ascendancy?" Eli asks, still reeling from the shock. 

"My wife and I were rescued from a mission that went sideways, and since the Jedi did not allow marriage and children, we stayed. Hell, the Council and the Senate wouldn't have taken me back if I was signed, sealed and delivered." Anakin grins. "Padme can't wait to meet you, but the kids are both away at the academy right now."

"I know a little about the Jedi and the purge, the Emperor's right hand used to be one - Darth Ravage is his name."

Anakin's smile dims, "Yes, I knew him well."

~

"Okay, but the journal-" Padme interrupts and Eli blushes to the tips of his ears. "Oh, Eli. Didn't he tell you?"

Ar'alani and Ba'kif both just cover their faces and Anakin mutters something about 'emotionally backasswards.'

~

Eli is simultaneously numb and in agony while Anakin is furious, ready to go hunt the  _ Chimaera _ and this 'Jedi Knight' right now. Luke and Leia were released from their impending survival test at Taharim for a 'death in the family.' Anakin has an arm around him from his left, Padme from his right, and the kids are watching worriedly at the adults not adulting. Eli has no idea how Force sensitives perceive emotions and he tries to clamp them down, box them up - he's in a room with a dozen right now. 

"Don't you dare. We're family for the good and the bad." Anakin is vehement. "We will find him, I promise you that."

It takes Ar'alani at full drive to counter Anakin when he's hell bent. Eli can't imagine anyone else who could manage it. Ar'alani simply said that all the chaos that he, Anakin, Padme, the twins, and the younglings could release is Not To Be Allowed.

~

Thrawn is in a medsled the next time Eli sees him, being hustled through the hangar of the  _ Steadfast _ . The damage is terrifying and he's not doing well - in and out of consciousness, not aware of his surroundings. Anakin has the so-called Jedi - who is little more than a boy - and hauls him off to Ar'alani.

Eli falls into step with the medsled, finding Thrawn's hand and taking it firmly. The readouts hurt to look at, even if he doesn't know entirely what they mean. Thrawn stills, eyelids dragging open, though the nictitating membrane is slow to retract - not a good sign. Thrawn's breath catches and his heartbeat accelerates.

"Eli Vanto." Even speaking veers the vitals from yellow to red. The glow from his eyes is dim. "It is you."

"I'm here. It's okay. Don't talk." He can't help but brush Thrawn's hair into some sort of order with his hand. "You're going to get better - Ar'alani said it's an order."

The pain drugs and anesthetics for the bacta tank are hazing his eyes, closing them. Eli does not let go until they have the tank ready. Just before they lift him in, Eli leans in pressing a kiss to Thrawn's brow, then to his lips. "You're back, and you're staying. I'll be here when you wake up."

Maybe he's imagining it, but Eli thinks that Thrawn is just conscious enough to twitch his fingers in reply. 


	18. Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Humans are full of mischief, no matter what age.

Game

~

They are not supposed to gamble, but on an ISD there's just not a lot to do. Yissa Hammerly starts the card night, and the only pot allowed is candy. Basically, once per week, a senior officer gets an egregious sugar high followed by a cratering sugar crash. Faro loses her whole box of Mad Moon bars one week. Then she ropes Lieutenant Commander Vanto into the game after his last trip to Coruscant - he brought back Pucker Suckers and Chokkit Suicide cups. Major Carvia is recruited solely on the basis of having Corellian Fry-Pies, and Senior Lieutenant Pyrondi comes in with a pillowcase half-full of Naboo taffies. 

The rotating table of players makes for a raft of things that your mother would yell at you for eating. Of course, coming to the notice of Admiral Thrawn is something they want to avoid, but occasionally knowing one officer had a box of sweet treats overrides good sense. It is Hammerly herself who gets the hots for some of Xoxtin's family's cordial-and-ganache-filled chokkits - and Xoxtin couldn't keep her mouth shut to save herself from Vader. 

They're in the middle of a hand at the back of the hangar, a jackpot of sweets in a naval trooper's helmet, the game going hot and fast. They move every week, and are hidden behind one of the undercover freighters when the lights go out. 

Eli hears Faro say, "Uh-oh."

The sound of boots echo through the hangar, drawing closer, and Eli considers getting up to sneak away, but if it's Thrawn out there with his infrared vision, it's futile. Therefore Eli sits there and awaits his doom. The footsteps stop somewhere to his left and Thrawn speaks.

"Lights, Captain Marinith." The lights come up and Thrawn is indeed there as the table comes to attention, looking incredulously at the naval trooper's helmet piled high with sweets. Hell, he could probably smell them clear across the hangar. "All of this running subterfuge - for a pile of sweets and potential hyperglycemia? Really?"

Nobody even answers that, they've been busted.

"I vividly remember that the punishment for stealing sweets was having to eat all of them. I would impose the same punishment except that none of you are five years old." Thrawn's exasperation is evident. "Possibly it's been too quiet for you and I need to come up with ways to keep you occupied - lest you are unable to conserve your mischief for leave." 

Nobody makes a peep. 

"All right. Enough. Everyone throw everything into the pot, then divide it evenly. I can't technically tap you for gambling since there's no currency involved." 

Eli dares a glance from under his cap, slowly lifting the bag of tamaberry fireballs and adding them into the hat. Everyone else follows suit and then the contents are divided. 

"Now, at the risk of sounding like everyone's father, all of you - go to your room."

They start out walking, a long walk of shame back to the lifts across a hangar mercifully empty of even the normal level of activity. They pass Xoxtin next to Marinith and Marinith has a good laugh at their expense. Xoxtin simply hands over her stake and disappears from mortification. Eventually, it's just Eli, Faro, and Hammerly walking down the corridor toward the quarters for the Admiral's senior staff. 

"That… could have been way, way worse," Hammerly mutters. "He went super easy on us."

"He did," Eli agrees. "He is going to find something for us to do - you can count on that."

"You're going to be okay?" Faro elbows him. "I mean… you know."

Both of his superiors know - in fact both got him wasted on frozen fruity drinks with little plasfilm umbrellas in them - and put him where Thrawn would find him. It was a complete set-up.

"Yeah, it's going to be okay. I'm going to get Looks, though." 

Hammerly and Faro bid him good night and… hm… they both go into Faro's quarters. When did that start happening? Eli enters the ready room between his and Thrawn's quarters and sets the burden of guilt candy on the conference table. Normally, he'd wait up for Thrawn to finish being nocturnal, but right now he's not betting on it. He peels down to his underwear and just goes to bed, leaving the door on his side of the ready room ajar.

When Eli wakes, it's dark, and there's a definite feeling of being watched. He turns over and sees red eyes glowing out of the dark ready room. 

"I'm up," he says in a sleep-slurred voice.

"I know," replies Thrawn. "I was just thinking that humans are a species with so much mischief in them - no matter what age."

"Okay. That's fair." Eli has only one Chiss to go on, so can't make any observations for any of them but Thrawn. "Did your parents really make you eat all the sweets you stole?"

"Not all of them - but only after they came back up with force and speed." Thrawn's voice is very dry. "Sweets are rare and expensive where I'm from."

"But you like sweets." As roommates in the academy and bunkmates as junior officers, he knew Thrawn could get through a double watch on a Mad Moon bar and caf strong enough to double as carbon remover.

"In moderation. The biggest culture shock I had was the commissary at the academy. You could walk in and just roll naked in sweets." Eli hears a rustle of cloth, trying to place it. "Then you could take a bath in caf - even if the caf here is much weaker than Chiss make it."

"I never thought about it. We grew up with sweets and junk food - it's not like that for Chiss?" Another rustle and Eli tilts his head, it sounded as if Thrawn just took his boots off. "Wait. Are you getting undressed? 

"I do plan on getting some sleep tonight, Eli Vanto," Thrawn chides. "After all, I have to come up with ways to keep notional humans busy."

"... what do you still have on?" Eli is suddenly very interested in this. 

Another rustle. "Not much."

"It's unfair to do a stripdown in the dark." Eli asserts, throwing back the covers and swinging his legs out. 

He can hear Thrawn stand up, see the red eyes looking at him until Thrawn turns away, then starts walking toward his quarters. "Do you really wish to know?"

"Hell, yes." Because Eli has become Thrawn-sexual. Moreover, Thrawn would be able to see this especially well in the dark.

"Then find my bed, Eli Vanto, to find out."


	19. Translation (Pure Smut)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things need no translation. Smut ahoy.

Translation

Some things need no translation, and Eli knows this. He might not speak the Chiss language at all, and speak Basic, Meese Caulf, and Sy Bisti well - but he's learning to speak Thrawn and has been since the moment he laid one on the 'damn Chiss' in their bunk room aboard the Blood Crow. After a four-year drought where he went through a bottle of lotion a week, Eli's getting laid long, tall, and often by long, tall, and Thrawn. 

No translation's needed for grinding each other in the shower, Eli with his feet off the deck because he's got his legs wrapped around Thrawn's hips and is also biting his shoulders. No translation is needed to tell him that Thrawn likes to watch Eli suck him off, red eyes bright and damn his cock is huge when it comes out of the pouch that keeps his works warm. On Thrawn's homeworld, freezing your balls off is apparently not a figure of speech but a real hazard.

It's by mutual accord that once that light goes off that Eli slides down to Thrawn's bunk. The first time Thrawn gets in him, all Eli can do is gasp like a landed fish and think that sitting down to firstmeal tomorrow's going to be interesting. Thrawn does reacharound, but there are also times when he's educating Eli - and won't let him pop. 

"Ejaculation is distinct from orgasm, Eli Vanto." 

"Gonnadie. Not arguing. Just please let me come." Eli whispers when he can stop biting Thrawn's pillow.

"Nobody in the history of the galaxy has ever dropped dead from not ejaculating." 

"First you're an art major and now you're doing history?"

"No, now I am doing you."

It's after that that things get hazy and when Eli does pop, it's like Ascension Week fireworks going off in his head, his body quaking with release, and Thrawn's fist slick with him - milking it for every drop. You can't argue with results. 

But it's after that's in some ways even better, when they're cleaned up and every fiber of muscle is loose. Being kissed to sleep - forehead, cheeks, chin, lips - warm and pinned between Thrawn and the wall might be the best thing Eli's ever felt in his life. No further translation needed.


	20. Wild Card

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Chimera is under lockdown and quarantine.

There are times in command that one visualizes playing the heads of one's subordinate officers like _ timpa _ drums. All it takes is one instance of idiocy, just one, and the consequences encompass an entire ISD. 

"So, because command did not tack on a 'this most assuredly means you' to the 'do not return to duty if you feel ill' order, the _ Chimaera _ will quarantine itself from the fleet. Meals and commissary orders will be delivered by mouse droids." Thrawn hopes the rebels will be understanding and not launch any shenanigans. "The lockdown order is for fourteen days with all but vital officers and crew confined to quarters. Those in doubles, triples, and quads will be moved to guest quarters, cadet quarters, gunboats, and shuttles in the hangers - whatever else it takes to make sure people are sequestered." 

He looks up from the flimsi from the chief of the medical battalion. The  _ Chimaera _ crew mates like  _ minki _ \- which is to say at every possible opportunity when off duty. 

"I should not need to say it, because you are all responsible and dutiful adults." Heads are pulling down between shoulders. "No hopping in and out of each other's beds. Exercise some self-control. Self-pleasure, get a bottle of lotion from the commissary, take an ice bath. Whatever you have to do."

Humans are so strange about sex that it's a wonder they manage to reproduce at all. His bridge crew range in age from twenty-four to forty-nine standard years, all of them seasoned officers, and they are blushing like sheltered adolescent virgins. Thrawn shakes his head. 

"Commodore Faro, Captain Hammerly, Lieutenant Commander Vanto, Lieutenant Pyrondi and I will move the ship to the quarantine area. Dismissed."

If the rest of his officers did not run for the door, they certainly moved very quickly.

~

The Chimaera settles uneasily into the fourteen-day quarantine period. While nobody knows the name of the dumbass that came back from leave with a pathogen that caused suppurating sores to erupt on the entire body, everyone has a guess. Everyone gets tested, and the positive cases are moved to the medical battalion. First thing after everyone is settled, the command crew suits up, locks everyone in their lockdown areas, and vacuum-purges the ship's common areas. The next step is intensive ultraviolet radiation to kill whatever does not perish in hard vacuum, and finally, a fumigation with an antibiologic so potent that it's a hazard to health. 

That treatment takes three days and predictably on the fourth day, people start fearing less death by virus than death by boredom. Eli stays in his quarters opposite Thrawn's, playing Grand Theft: Coruscant Underworld, Team Citadel 2, Wild Space Redemption, and Fatal Fantasy 7. Thrawn is no doubt immersed in art, reading, or catching up on his secret vice - a historical drama about the Tepasi Wars among the families of Romodi, Rossi, Motti, and Tagge called 'Game of Thrones.' 

Eli gets restless by day four and by restless he means horny. Thrawn is an exceedingly generous lover, and Eli admits he's become spoiled with wrecking Thrawn's bed three or four times a week. He resolves to keep it between himself, his hair rinse, and his hand in the shower. However, if he's honest with himself, he's missing everything else, too. He misses being smashed into the mattress, and Thrawn losing his Basic before he comes, he misses being kissed, he even misses big, cold, blue Chiss feet on his warm human ass - and he never thought that he'd miss that. 

_ Note to self: Empire Day - get Thrawn some slipper socks. _

Eli is resolutely determined not to bother Thrawn, but that little green light next to his name on Eli's datapad is tempting. Finally, Eli takes off his headphones, picks up the pad and types.

**Lt.C.E.V:** Are you awake?

**Adm.T:** Of course. Are you unwell?

**Lt.C.E.V:** No. Bored. I thought I'd love fourteen days of hanging out in my underwear, gaming, and eating junk food. Long story short - not loving it. What are you doing?

**Adm.T:** I caught up on all the red tape that command uses to mummify admirals, and have been looking at a new publication on the art of the Xicomari. 

**Lt.C.E.V:** Of course you have. Hey, what file did you just send me?

**Adm.T:** The current piece that I was observing. 

Eli sighs and opens the file, then his eyes go wide. Well, it's art and that's for sure, but basically there's a pair of guys - one carved from blue marble with onyx hair - fucking. 

**Adm.T:** Apparently the Xicomari had some contact with the Chiss. It's a bas relief panel.

Eli's pad chimes with at least six more holos and he groans because the guy in the carvings looks like Thrawn. The Chiss, for a race that is supposed to be minding its own business in the Ascendancy gets around - or did. If you squint, the other one looks like him - similar build and coloring.

**Adm.T:** This is about 7,000 years old, preserved by a pyroclastic flow from a series of volcanic eruptions 6,500 years ago.

**Lt.C.E.V:** That is utterly unfair. If you want to tease me like this, send a dick pic.

**Adm.T:** A what?

**Lt.C.E.V:** Allow me to demonstrate.

Eli pulls down his drawers, gives himself a couple of strokes to bring himself all the way up, snaps a 2-D shot, and sends it to Thrawn. 

**Adm.T:** I can't get my hands on you, but you could put your hands on yourself. 

**Lt.C.E.V:** Parity. I want a pic back. 

The chime of a downloading file was instant. And a very good pic, too.

**Adm.T:** This is interesting, but it does not give me the sound of your voice, your breathing. 

**Lt.C.E.V:** Do you still have your gaming headset?

**Adm.T:** Of course, the new Gangland: Black Sun is coming out. I enjoy the thought experiments these games provide. 

**Lt.C.E.V:** Plug it into the datapad. 

Eli plugs his own headset in and waits until the line is live between them. It isn'tt ideal, but it is what they have to work with for the next ten days. 

"Eli Vanto." Thrawn's voice is a half-octave low and silky. "What are you planning?"

"You want to hear my voice and my breathing? I want to hear yours." Eli reaches for the lotion in his nightstand. "I hope you have something slippery handy."


	21. Holiday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A return to Hoth.

Holiday

Thrawn, though he will never admit it, gets homesick. 

How anyone can be homesick for a home covered in glaciers, frozen oceans, and massive superpredators is beyond Eli. So being sent back to Hoth for the northern hemisphere summer is not that bad of an outcome - at least not for Thrawn. It's like a holiday for him. They're doing the work of the survey corps, but much more highly classified, and it's on the orders of the Emperor himself. They might not know what they're looking for, but it has to be assumed that Palpatine does. There is also a strict order not to touch any unidentifiable artifacts they might find.

It's fascinating to see Thrawn in an environment close to his native one. His skin takes on a darker hue, the red of his eyes deepens to a garnet color, and absent the level of warmth that keeps humans comfortable, he moves much faster. External heat makes Chiss languid and comfortable - external cold switches their internal furnace on and reminds them that large predators like to eat them - so move your blue ass. A few of the native apex predators do try to have Imperials for dinner, and with some success when it comes to careless surveyors.

Thrawn is more interested in the Chiss ruins and the messages left behind on monuments, in the remains of buildings, and even in some belongings left buried under snow and ice. There is even graffiti - some of which he translates for Eli with the understanding that this dialect has not been spoken in thousands of years. He's puzzled at the elimination over time of historical characters such as the mysterious Saganu. His name is on everything from monuments to some really scorching graffiti about his sexual proclivities. 

"I can't even find a family name. Granted, naming conventions might have shifted somewhat, but it would be like walking up to the emperor and calling him 'Sheev.'" Thrawn grumbles, looking over maps of the non-Chiss buildings. Temples of some sort, they think. The orders from the top just say to catalog and leave alone. "There's mention of House Miurani and Shah - both of them with no modern descendants."

Eli is just glad to be back in the shuttle. It might be summer here, but a boy from the shores of Liuome on Lysatra has a different definition for that. 

"This was thousands of years ago and who knows how many wars ago." Eli unfastens his parka, shucks his boots, and takes off his insulating suit. Getting undressed takes forever here. "There's not a way for you to ask anyone, is there?"

"Not from here, no. I am still exiled." Thrawn is in his uniform, ice boots, and a much lighter parka - Eli doesn't even think he has long underwear on. "Chiss ships no longer come this far in."

Eli is skeptical about that. As an officer, he's learned the value of keeping an eye on the neighbors. He stands right under the heating vent and sighs - he's developing a Chiss-like appreciation for warmth. 

"How can you possibly be cold, Eli Vanto?" Thrawn hangs up the discarded gear, once again changing the subject away from the Chiss. "You were warmly dressed and it's summer." 

"Thrawn, I'm from a place where you can fry an egg on the hood of a speeder on your average summer day." Eli raises his hands into the flow of hot air. "It's so cold here that you can't even take a mug of caf outside without it freezing solid in a few minutes." 

As for taking a piss, everyone got used to using the bag - the native apex predators use the scent to target their prey.

Thrawn comes and inspects his hands. The thermogenic fat keeps Chiss toasty - so for now Thrawn is much warmer than Eli. His fingers tingle sharply as they warm up.

"Can I get some more of that?" Eli husks, his cheeks warming. "I forgot how warm you get."

"When we get back to the  _ Chimaera _ , I promise to refresh your memory."


	22. Traditional

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Traditional Lysatran cuisine from the POV of Captain Yissa Hammerly.

Traditional

"ELI VANTO. Don't you act like you don't know me, boy. Your momma raised you better!"

When Wild Spacers find each other in the Empire, it's as if they have to catch up on the gossip from the entirety of space. Captain Yissa Hammerly - who has known Eli Vanto since the  _ Thunder Wasp _ \- pats him on the back. She's Corulagi and no matter where she goes she's related to someone or someone knows her family. Hell, she's cousins with half the Core.

The  _ Chimaera _ rescued a civilian freighter registered out of Lysatra from pirates. While the modified  _ Gozanti  _ freighter had enough arms and an upgraded armor class, the pirates were numerous and well-armed, not to mention ballsy enough to take a shot at an ISD coming to interrupt their work. The gunnery groups of the  _ Chimaera _ responded accordingly, and now the pirates were all hanging in space, all systems down, while negotiating surrender terms. Since all systems down meant life support, inertial dampers, and hyperdrive, they'd basically agree to pole-dance in a Mos Eisley cantina if it meant not dying in their disabled ships. 

Thrawn would not do that, but he'll squeeze the scumbags dry - Yissa has faith. 

In the meantime, he's talking to the Dorrisons - who have known Lieutenant Commander Vanto's family since 'little Eli' was three. They have the dirt on him, that's for sure, and also loads of gossi… er… that is 'informal intelligence' to brief him on. Salyana Dorrison has Vanto by the arm and there's no escape, actually.

"Lieutenant Commander! Goodness. Your momma never mentioned that. I thought you were going for supply officer. Bridge crew? Command track! Oh, my! Sugar, I think that maybe your momma just didn't want to be seen bragging. Now is this the boy you were at Royal with? A commodore already? Hello, darlin' - goodness, there surely is a lot of you!"

Wait. Boy? Xoxtin, who can't shut up to save herself from Vader, is visibly biting the inside of her cheek.

_ Don't laugh, Yissa. That's your CO - all two-plus meters of him - being called a boy. Boy - that's a damn big boy. _

Thrawn formally bows to the silver-haired woman. "You know Lieutenant Commander Vanto?"

"Oh, yes. Me n' Fred here started doing cargo runs with his folks when we were still in secondary. Eli used to make local system runs with our kids - Netan and Kyla." Salyana takes  _ Thrawn _ by the arm, reaching up to pat his shoulder. Mr. Dorisson gives Thrawn a look that says 'what can you do' and Thrawn just rolls with it. "Now, I've seen your folk out around Dymos. Sharp traders, don't say a lot, but solid folks. I'd no idea y'all came this far in." 

Thrawn doesn't even have to answer, as now Yissa, Faro, and Pyrondi are all up for scrutiny. "I didn't expect to find so many pretty girls on a military ship. Goodness, Eli - I get why you joined up!"

Vanto's expression is fatalistic, Mr. Dorrison's is empathetic, and Pyrondi and Faro look as if they will personally make sure that Eli Vanto never lives this down. Thrawn is… Thrawn - he would not say 'shit' if he was standing shoulder-deep in it.

"Now, you folks come on in for dinner. Fred told me all about military food from when he was a freighter pilot for the Republic way back when."

Thrawn saves them all with another formal bow, this time over Salyana's hand. "I regret that we can't join you, Captain Dorrison, we are all still on duty for the time being, and cannot leave the decks of the Chimaera, though the invitation is tempting."

"Well, shoot. Here I wanted to feed y'all up." 

"Mistress Dorrison, I've done my turns in the galley." Vanto spoke up. "If y'all have the makins, I'd love to show my comrades what a traditional Lysatran meal tastes like."

Hammerly swears that Vanto's accent has just tripled in mass, but navy food is… navy food. It's hot, you get it three times a day, and it generally doesn't kill you. The next thing that anyone knows, all of them are detailed to commissary duty, wrangling bags and crates, refrigeration units and such out of the  _ Yellow Rose _ and onto a flatbed repulsorlift. Nobody even at flag rank has the nerve to straight up 'no' a woman the caliber of Salyana Dorrison.

The Dorrisons get one up on the deal by taking the pirate ships as salvage, and both Vanto and Thrawn get their cheeks  _ kissed _ . Yissa is going to laugh so hard when this is over and her CO is out of earshot.

"Eli, sugar, don't you worry a bit. I'll get your momma and poppa straightened out but quick." Vanto looks commensurately worried. "You and your friends be safe out here AND DON'T Y'ALL BE STRANGERS." 

The last part is shouted as the freighter's cargo hatch closes and the repulsors take her out of the hangar and into space. All of them are just standing there, blinking at one another as if to verify that all just happened.

~

Vanto absconds to a small galley off the main ready room after change of watch. Meant for strategic meetings, feeding the bridge crew, and fitful sleep over the course of a long battle, Vanto locks the damn door on them. It's close to senior officer country and in a very short time, Yissa can smell… something. 

Something really, really good. Meaty. Sweet. Spicy. Smoky. 

Thrawn's lurking and Yissa can hear her own stomach howling. 

Finally, when Vanto opens the damn door, he's got hungry people waiting and looks most pleased with himself. "One traditional Lysatran feast, courtesy of the Dorrisons and the  _ Yellow Rose _ . Com'ngitit."

A thick red meat stew sits in the middle of a variety of things to put on the stew. Next to that is a sheet pan of something yellow and crumbly. Next to that is a pile of yellow crispy things. Then there's a bowl of grains in a red sauce, but not the same sauce as the stew. And finally, there's a whole lot of cold stuff in brown bottles, and green pie. 

And it smells fucking fabulous. 

After eating navy food for a while, you stop realizing that it has no taste. It's the lowest common denominator for edible by 38,000 people on an ISD. Thrawn himself goes through a bottle of pepper sauce each week. Everyone's got their seasoning shake or sauce to make it into something other than what it is - bleh. While Vanto's food is no Ascension Week feast - everyone just heaps a plate and gets to it - it's good enough to shut everyone up without exception and remind them of their table manners.

A few break a sweat on the deeply spiced stew, cooling it down with something white and creamy or shredded and yellow on top. Vanto smashes the yellow crispy things into it. Faro and Pyrondi are crazy for the grains and the yellow crispy things. Vanto eats like it's his first meal in a month. And Thrawn? If someone shot the Chiss right now, he'd roll up to the gates of Paradise and vow that he died a happy man. His eyes are closed in literal bliss - and from the looks she, Faro, and Pyrondi are sneaking at the man it is a good, good look.

Even better, nobody talks, aside from asking one of the tablemates to pass this or that. When the platters and pot are empty, the green pie made with acid fruit filling and sweet-spiced crust comes out and gives everyone enough glucose to drink the beer in the brown bottles. 

Thrawn stands and raises his bottle. "Eli Vanto."

The room follows. "Eli Vanto."

Vanto taps bottles with everyone and the quiet is deeply contented. Nobody has the energy to move when they're digesting a net amount of food the size of their head. 

Ianya Pyrondi rubs the side of her nose and asks, "Clean-up?"

"I went and did that behind myself, so just throw everything in the recyc - the droids will get it." Vanto replied, lazily cracking another beer. "I'm used to galleys the size of a refrigerator cube."

"Then I'm dumping my dishes and going to fall into bed." Pyrondi said. "Vanto, that was the best meal I've had all year. Real meat - nothing from a tank!"

Faro tips up her beer and takes a swallow. "I haven't seen an Auntie like that since I left home. Good stars and kind spirits, put her in uniform!"

Yissa agrees with a groan. "Vanto, you know you're going to be hearing from home?"

Thrawn tilts his head, clearly not understanding something. "Anti?"

Yissa takes that one. "One of your mother's sisters or a friend so close that she's family. Has a lot of say-so and when she says so, you do so." 

"And she has the dirt on you, usually accompanied by some butt-naked baby holos to boot." Faro adds. "Flag rank for families."

"Cross them at your own peril. If, for instance, I had a choice of crossing my Auntie Sashi or Grand Moff Tarkin, I'd have to change my name and leave for Wild Space." Pyrondi stretched and stood, dumping her dishes and those closest to her in the recycling chute. "Good night, sirs and ma'ams." 

Faro stood next muttering that she was going to be in the dojo for a week. "Vanto, thanks. It was amazing. That ought to keep me full until we next take leave. Rest well, all."

Yissa leans back in her chair, working her way down her beer and wondering. Well, everyone thinks Thrawn and Vanto are… having at it. Then again, Yissa ought not to crack her teeth on it - not with as many 'home team players' and 'switch hitters' that staff the  _ Chimera _ . She gathers her dishes and dumps them after finishing her beer and bids them good night. 

As the door closes behind her, she turns her head just enough to see Eli Vanto slide a hand across Thrawn's chest and the admiral leans into what can only be an incoming. 

Impact imminent, Yissa chuckles to herself, wondering if Karyn was serious about going to sleep.


	23. Insecurities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eli Vanto discovers some internal issues.

Insecurities

It's a touchy subject. 

Hell, with Chiss everything is a touchy subject. If Thrawn is a fair representation of his people, then the Chiss are walking black holes from which no information can escape. Eli is determined to crack this one - he's in Thrawn's bunk four shipboard days out of seven and is going to wrestle the lid off. Eli admits that he himself has not been as forthcoming as he might, especially on this tender subject. 

Thrawn's eyebrow goes up. "Aside from you? One."

"One." Whoo. Must have been a hell of a one. "So it was long term?"

"Yes, she was my mentor in many ways." Thrawn's voice is soft on this. "Bodies are bodies, and they're easy. The mind, the… I do not have the Basic. The  _ pan-adhiri _ ?"

"Soul, spirit, it could be either." Eli is not content with Sy Bisti or Meese Caulf. They are trade languages, not meant for discussing much other than commerce. "So unless you have a connection on that level, you're just not interested?"

"Exactly." Thrawn's fingers stroke the back of Eli's neck; it's almost meditative. "And you, Eli Vanto?"

"Fair's fair. I… got around a bit when I was in secondary with other boys and with girls. Then I had the academy and a lot of cold showers." Eli tenses a little, worried about being judged. "When I was in my last year of secondary, my girlfriend had a pregnancy scare. She wasn't, but that cooled me down hard and fast."

"That would alarm someone much older." 

No judgement, but no revelations. Eli decides to let be. In the next few years, he learns only one thing - her name was Ziara.

~

It takes him a good while - okay, fine, it takes a year and a half - to figure out Ar'alani is Thrawn's Ziara. When he does, with Ar'alani  _ sitting on him _ and reading that damned journal, Eli just about dies. 

"Eli Vanto. Is your head about to explode?" It's actually the least embarrassing question that she's asked in the last fifteen minutes. "I can move down - away from your diaphragm." 

No. If she moves down, he's going to have another problem and possibly actually die of mortification. He does not need to manifest an erection under his female CO. It would be like… no… do not think of Commodore Faro. Do not.

"Fine where y'are. No worries." Equations. The hairiest ones he can remember. "Finding everything you're looking for?"

He's a little mad, but Eli has found out one thing - female Chiss are much more aggressive than the males and very protective. 

"I find plenty to sate my curiosity and ease my mind. You and Thrawn are both well-matched. However, I do have some questions-"

Eli sighs at the ceiling. On the one hand, he needs Thrawn's advice very badly right now and on the other hand - if they ever find him - he never wants Thrawn to know.

"Yes, ma'am. What do you need to know?"


	24. Role Swap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eli and Thrawn trade places.

Role Swap

They thought that the fabled Thrawn Nuruodo was an alien, but rumor seems to have confused his Wild Space origin with his alien aide who has an unpronounceable name. The capture of the rear admiral, his aide, and the admiral's wife Yissa (also not mentioned in the bounty pucks) leads Misk, his partner Novata, and their questionable crew to capture the lone  _ Lambda _ class shuttle and bring it on board the  _ Smuggler's Blues _ . Rankers are wankers - there's no fight in them when you get them off their fancy-ass ships.

The bounty for Thrawn alone is enough for a capital-class ship, Elivanto's bounty will get them a grip of real fighters instead of uglies, and the woman will bring a good price, too. Instead of handing the three over to the original client, Novata puts the bounty up for bid. Then they theoretically have enough to buy their own damn fleet. Everyone wants these people - Black Sun and other orgs, high-ranked imps, rebels, corporate interests - you name them and the commodore and lieutenant commander pissed in their caf. 

Everything goes great right up until they're about to hand the trio over to the highest bidder. First, the hyperdrive bites it. It's not a surprise on an old and kludged together freighter, but it dumps them out in the middle of interstellar space. Next, gravitics go on the fritz. When Misk looked into the hold where they keep their prisoners, all three are still asleep. They understand that unless they behave, that hold will be opened to space. It's only a little trimmed off the bounty if they come in dead.

Next, the whole electrical system goes sketchy. Novata's working on the hyperdrive, then stops to make sure that nobody's electrocuted in the fresher. The imps are sleeping like babies, Misk checks the monitors every hour and wonders if Novata dosed their rations with Somneez. Then again, when he'd been a Republic naval trooper, he slept whenever he could. 

Novata brings the power back up - after a tense shutdown of life support - to find some other systems got knocked offline by the power surge. The imps need checking and for some reason, Misk is reluctant to do it himself. He's always had a way to tell when luck is about to change for better or worse, so he sends Kato the Grunt to do it until the monitoring system's back online. 

Kato does not report back. 

It's not a surprise - Kato's stoned most of the time. He can spend hours at a time staring into space, but he's a crack shot on the turret. So Misk sends the Duro next.

The Duro does not report back. 

The monitors come back up and the imps are awake now, sitting with their backs to the camera. The empty mealpacks show that they've eaten and isn't he going to read someone off for giving them extra rations. The next thought brought him up very short and made him reach for the R-11 hanging from the back of his station. If he didn't order it either someone acted on their own initiative - something that just did not happen on the good ship _Smuggler's Blues_ \- then…

"Kato, Duro, Sovask, Mulag, Desh - check in." He's holding the comm in one hand, wiping sweat with the other. This feels bad. 

"Sovask."

"Desh."

"Mulag, Kato, Duro - check in."

Novata comms him. "Misk, what's up?"

He's never been so glad to hear zir voice. "Are you at the stern right now?"

"Yeah, I had to get a new coupler for the main drive." 

"Check the imps? Duro, Kato, and Mulag are not checking in."

"Pfft," ze huffs. "The lights are offline in there since the surge, but they were all off in one corner, talking when I went by."

All the spit in him dries up - that's not what he sees on the monitor. "How long until the drive's back online?"

"You can spin it up in five minutes, no worries - just not before then. It's in reset mode." 

"Okay. Get up here, like fast, and let me know if you see Duro, Mulag, and Kato."

"They're probably all in the belly turret getting high. Let me make sure that the reset goes through."

"Good. Okay. Fine." He discomms and rubs his face, staring out into the black. 

~

"He's done this before?" Yissa Hammerly asks Eli. 

"You should have seen what he managed to do on the first day I ever met him!" Eli replies. "I need another roll of engine tape."

Hammerly passes it over. They are busily engaged in wrapping scumbags all pretty for presentation to the appropriate authorities. Once wrapped from mouth to toes, they stick them up on the wall of the main airlock. Thrawn is being considerate, he only dumps one at a time on them.

"Do you want to dig your uniform out of the shuttle? It can't be comfortable doing this dressed as an admiral's wife." Down to the jewelry (confiscated by the scumbags) and Core worlds accent, Captain Hammerly looks like she just stepped out of a Coruscant boutique. "I don't even know how those shoes work."

"Hah. Every Corulagi girl can do fifteen impossible things in these heels before she gets her liptint on." Hammerly sighs. "I was visiting my parents. Didn't go well."

That he can relate to. "I'm sorry."

It's quiet for a few minutes before she speaks. "They asked me home because they found a match for me. Sprang it on me at a family dinner - with his family. I refused."

Eli knows she has someone, he just doesn't want to say anything because he has someone, too. But… "I know how you feel."

Hammerly shoots him a hard look that softens a little when he meets her eyes. "I know you do. We've been around each other since I was a new second lieutenant on the  _ Thunder Wasp _ . I know you wouldn't… discuss it. I'm just tired of always playing defense."

"At the risk of sounding like a holotalk show, it's them - not you. The way they feel is their problem, don't make it into yours. The Imperial Navy is lucky to have you." Hammerly's a few years older than he is, a damn fine officer, and one who put in to follow Thrawn to the Chimaera. "Thrawn has every confidence in you and so does the rest of the bridge. Hell, if family fights on Corulag are the same as Lysatra, you call me. I might not be able to throw furniture, but I've got good aim with the crockery."

The last part made Hammerly smile. "Keep up the pep talks, Vanto, and you're going to wear that rear admiral's rank plate for real someday."

Eli blushed, something a career officer is supposed to have forgotten how to do. "Not a chance. I'll be an aide until we win or I retire, whichever comes first."

A polite cough is audible, and Eli wonders for the uncountable number of times how such a big man can move that quietly. 

"Captain Hammerly," Thrawn holds out her duffel. "I thought you might like to change into something more comfortable. We can expect extraction very quickly."

Hammerly slowly takes the bag from him, wrapping her arms around it, looking at Thrawn as if searching for something. 

"Thank you, sir." Her brow smoothes, and her shoulders drop a little in relief before she stiffens to attention. Whatever she was looking for, Eli thinks she's found it. "For everything."

"I hardly think that going from leave into a pirate ambush was what you had in mind to thank us for, but-" Thrawn shrugs and it's the first time Eli's seen him use the human gesture. "Families."

Hammerly laughs softly, "Well, I didn't join the navy to be bored. I'll go change. Is Commodore Faro extracting us?"

"I hope she's the first to get here, certainly." Thrawn answers. "Our non-arrival at Chandrila caused something of a disturbance."

"Post-haste, then." She stiffens to attention. "Thank you, sirs. Back soonest."

Eli and Thrawn exit the main airlock and slide the inner door shut behind them, leaving unconscious prisoners engine-taped to the bulkheads.

She's right, you know." Thrawn murmurs, tapping the rank plate. "You're going to be wearing one of those on your own one day."

Eli removes his rank plate from Thrawn's uniform and puts the vice-admiral's plate back. "And put up with all the crap you have to take? No, sir. But I'll be sticking around - for a very long time."

Thrawn replaces Eli's rank plate for him. "Come, we should get to the bridge."

"So Faro's on her way?" Eli starts up the ladder. 

"Among others, yes." 

"Are you checking out my ass?"

"Also yes."

"So who's the other folks out looking for us?"

"Do you remember Vader's pet project for a larger platform star destroyer? It went out on shakedown a week ago."

"Yes. Ohno. Are you serious? No, wait. Of course you are? What am I thinking - you're you." Eli rests his forehead on a rung. "I can't handle this much fun. Can we go to Chandrila?"

"Sorry, Eli Vanto. However, I do have a plan-"


	25. Closet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU - Eli meets Thrawn when he's still an underaged and closeted freighter jockey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, this is part of a longer fic. I promise to write it.

Closet

Eli never let his parents know. 

He did all the typical things a Lysatran boy did. Dated girls, played smashball, got in just enough of the same trouble as his peers did - all carefully calculated to keep parental attention off him. When he was sixteen and got his navigator's license, he kept up the appearances because all these people knew his parents. Then, on his first solo run to Tsivor, Eli puts on a hat, dark glasses, and buys a flimsiprint magazine, hustling back to the freighter and into his bunk.

Turning the pages, mouth dry and cock hard enough to drive rivets, Eli lets his gaze linger on the forms, bodies, ideas he'd only seen in his most fevered wet dreams. Then he jerks off three times in the next three hours. His balls feel as if they've been used for a speed bag, but for the first time since puberty, Eli sleeps like a baby. Before he leaves Tsivor, the magazine goes into the mass converter, the memory goes in the spank tank, and he heads back to Lysatra secure in his secret. This becomes his standard procedure and he tells himself that until he has his own ship, or maybe until he joins the Imperial Navy, that this is the way it's going to be. 

Until the pirates. He's decided to stay in the family business, and at seventeen he buys the Corellian armored YT-class freighter _Wayward Son_. The Junden route is too profitable to give up, but increasing piracy is more than an issue - it's becoming a hazard. It's not any of the usual suspects, either. Eli maps the reported incidents, aware that he's missing data and hard numbers, but he plots a course he thinks ought to be safe. The Junden approach is out of the question, and Eli's best course skirts the Unknown Regions with two extra jumps. It ought to be fine.

It's not fine. 

Eli exits the first of the extra jumps and is immediately under fire from two vessels that do not look like any pirate vessels he's ever heard of. He responds with fire from his own lasers, but this isn't a simulator - and the ships move faster than he's ever seen. They take out his insystem drive, leaving him with his maneuvering engines and possibly damage to his hyperdrive. The lurch of a tractor beam locking on almost makes him throw up as he grabs a heavy blaster from under the helm.

When another ship drops out of hyperspace, Eli figures that he's done for. It's huge, bristling with weaponry and the two pirates immediately turn their attention to it, moving into a defensive formation and dropping their tractor beam. The new ship is maybe not a pirate, but not anything to sit in front of, either. Eli's only thought is to get the fuck out of the way, maneuvering to a safe spot with a small moon behind him, and to try and reboot the insystem drive.

It's fast, and it is brutal, and it doesn't go the pirates' way. The two ships self-destruct before the boarding shuttles can reach them. Then the Wayward Son lurches under another tractor beam, this time being drawn toward the warship. That's a little rude, but Eli hails them first in Basic, then in Meese Caulf, and then in Sy Bisti when there's no reply.

"This is the Lysatran independent freighter _Wayward Son._ Captain Eli Vanto hailing unknown ship." Eli takes a good look at the weapons emplacements pointed at him. "I'm not a pirate or a smuggler. I'm a cargo vessel bound for the Junden system, port of Duasti on Junden Prime."

"Be calm, Captain Eli'van'to. This is the Chiss Expansionary Defense Force cruiser _Nightdragon_ , preparing to take you onboard." 

The voice is deep and the Sy Bisti textbook perfect, but his name is oddly broken up, but Chiss? 

_Come on. Really._

"Vanto to cruiser - the Chiss are a myth used to scare naughty children. Pull the other one."

The next communication is, "Myth? Explain." The tone is still devoid of affect, but he sounds slightly surprised or suspicious.

"Uhm. Well, a legend or story."

"Ah. I assure you, we are not fictional. Now power down or _be_ powered down, Captain Vanto - it is your choice." 

That voice has a lot of durasteel in it and Eli hesitates, mastering a 'you are not the boss of me' impulse. Anything that big with that much firepower is indeed the boss of him and his ship has taken enough damage.

" _Nightdragon_ , I am powering down."

The tractor beam draws the _Wayward Son_ into a hangar bay with what look to be impounded ships, most of them unfamiliar models and sets him gently on the deck. The huge blast doors cutting off the stars makes him wonder if he just should have run. Eli watches the pressure indicator on his heads-up display, waiting until it reaches one standard atmosphere. When the pressure adjusts, a small blast door at one end of the bay opens and…

Those are Chiss - one man in black and one woman in white and moving as if the last thing you'd do in life would be to pick a fight with either one. Black hair, blue skin, and glowing red eyes, but with human-type bodies and tall. The woman wears a white tunic and trousers with black boots, while the man is armed and in something that looks like a peace-keeper's tactical gear. They are alone, no other weapons evident, and they stop to look up at the cockpit. From the blinking and discussion between them, they might not have seen a human before - that's fair because until now he didn't think that there were really any Chiss, either.

The male raises a comlink, "Captain Eli'van'to of the freighter _Wayward Son_ , I am Senior Commander Myth'raw'nuru of the _Nightdragon_. Open your boarding ramp. You have entered Chiss space, and on the orders of the admiralty, we will search your vessel and person." 

Eli had the entirely inappropriate thought that if that big fellow wanted to search him, he would cooperate. Gladly. Then he booted the thought right out of his head. Nope. Fly casual. Normal. These are legends come to life, and if anything else is true about them then they might actually be able to do magic and read minds.

"Leave the weapon, Captain Eli'van'to." The woman speaks, "We mean you no injury, but it would be inadvisable to test us."

Spooked, Eli sets the weapon down and leaves the cockpit. He's pretty sure they couldn't see it from that angle. He lets the boarding ramp down, heart hammering in his chest. Is he being rescued or captured?

~

Thrawn does not know what he was expecting, but it was not a tousle-headed, half-grown _moactan teel_. The 'captain' is brown-haired, brown-skinned, and slightly built with the wide brown eyes of a sarrac pup. Eli'van'to is less than academy age at his best estimation. Ar'alani touches Thrawn's elbow, then both of them move forward to take the boy into custody.


	26. Business

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thrawn and Ar'alani speak with Eli. Continuation of 'Closet' - part of an AU that popped into my brain.

Business

Ar'alani thinks that this Eli'van'to cannot possibly be fully-grown - yes, they have the sky-walkers, but they don't run the ship by themselves! He's twitchy, but Ar'alani puts that down to meeting two representatives of a people that he thought were granny-tales. She and Thrawn flank him, each firmly taking an arm and walking him away from the ship. When he tries to drag his feet and verbally backpedal, Thrawn simply looks at him - and the boy settles. 

Once the blast doors shut behind them, putting the ship out of sight, Thrawn comms the search team and tells them to get started. It's always chancy, trying to predict pirates, but this time they got a payout. Unfortunately, as Thrawn pointed out, pirates and smugglers generally do not self-destruct on discovery. This now argues for something more sinister than piracy. While she does not think this open-faced child is one of them, he might have some intelligence on the actors - she can't think of another reason for him to have blundered into the edge of CEDF territory.

They bring him to an interrogation room and sit him down. His infrared signature is all over the place. It's like trying to read a flip-ball arcade game. However, one thing is clear - every time he glances at Thrawn the tips of his ears and his cheeks light up. Not that Ar'alani can blame him - Thrawn is a good place to rest the eyes. It's when he opens his mouth that one has to watch out. He's brilliant, but he's also that idiot hair that will not stay in place. 

"You understand that you are not accused of wrongdoing, but that you have intruded on Chiss space," Thrawn begins. "We would know how you came to be here."

"Well, as I said, I have a cargo bound for the Junden system - to the port of Duasti on Junden Prime." He takes a device similar to a questis out of its holster and keys up the route. "It's too profitable for me to drop, even with pirates, so I plotted a different approach." 

Thrawn shakes his head. "Dangerous. Your people know little of the Chaos. You came very close to some serious variations that could have ended your life."

The tips of the boy's ears all but glow. "I know that the Unknown Regions have some wild anomalies, but these two systems seemed stable, and even if it's more roundabout-" Eli'van'to keys up an expanded map. "These are all the reported attacks that I've been able to gather, and you can see that they're steering clear of this area. So I figured that this might be a safer route."

Thrawn leans over the boy's shoulder and for a moment Ar'alani is afraid Eli'van'to's ears may burst into flames. Count on Thrawn to miss it with his focus on the information in front of him. Her old and dear one occasionally has to be forcibly introduced to the obvious. However, the data is certainly showing an incursion into human space.

"Explain your data." Ar'alani opens a tab in her own questis, fitting the boy's mapping against their own, nestling the graphic against CEDF territory. 

"Blue is a ship gone missing - ship's arrival data's available daily from the Insurer's Guild - the yellow is a ship overdue. Green is on-time arrivals." Eli taps each one. "Red is a reported pirate attack, orange is an action against pirates or smugglers - available from a few different sources. I graphed the data when I was plotting my course and though I didn't have everything I needed, I thought I had enough."

"Why did you include on-time arrivals," Ar'alani inquires, "Instead of looking only at the anomalies of schedule and actions?"

"Because the on-time arrivals indicate a captain chose a safer course," Thrawn murmurs. "Freighters in the far reaches act more like public transport than anything else."

Eli'van'to lights up, a broad smile breaking across his face. "Right! Just about every freighter company or combine out here uses the same courses on their routes. Hold up." He removes the actions and enlarges the graphic to show tags attached to the missing, late, and on-time designations. "You can pull a tag and see the course that they filed with the guild. If the guild feels the course is too dangerous, they won't insure."

"Your data doesn't show military actions - only local system authorities." Thrawn observes, tapping up the enforcement actions by placing a hand on Eli'van'to's shoulder and leaning over him - causing a miniature light show. 

"Uhm. Right. The Empire doesn't really tell us what it's doing. Out this far from galactic center, I don't think it's much unless something interferes with their supply chain." The boy seems about to take issue with Thrawn tapping as he pleases, but then shows at least some sense of self-preservation and reconsiders. "So I admit that I was working from incomplete data, and I am sorry that I jumped into your territory, but really - I'm just a freighter captain out on business."

Ar'alani considers this. "Nonetheless, we need to search you, and your ship, and make sure that you are not a threat. Additionally, the damage to your ship may preclude us permitting you to leave."

Almost all the heat goes out of the boy's face. Shock? Anxiety? Maybe a little of both.

"Your insystem drive was damaged, a section of your hull plating took enemy fire." Thrawn interrupts. "We have an obligation to be sure that you leave our ship and do not immediately die."

"I'm much obliged, but I'll need to contact someone to let them know I'm late." Eli'van'to's knuckles whiten as he clenches his hands. "And some of that cargo is perishables - I need to power up those units."

"We will power your systems grid and preserve your cargo, Captain." Ar'alani soothes. "But you will be our guest for some time longer." 

Thrawn folds a bunk down from the wall. "Your meals will be brought to you, the sanitary unit is in that alcove, and we will have another shipsuit brought to you." 

The boy blinks at them and then says, "What?"

Ar'alani sighs, "Your clothing and boots. You will give them to us and we will search them." 

Thrawn leans in and slips the boy's questis out from under his fingers. "Kit off. We'll return it to you." 

From there, there's another light show. Eli'van'to seems to be unsure which is worse, nakedness or having his questis in someone else's hands. His ears should be smoking by now and the blazing signature on his cheeks makes her worry for his health.

Ar'alani attempts to lighten the tense moment. "It will be fine, Eli'van'to. You have nothing that I or Senior Commander Thrawn have not seen before."

She is therefore perplexed when no, that does not make it better.


	27. Favorites

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eli caters to Thrawn's sweet tooth.

Favorites

Eli knows how Thrawn loves sweets.

Art and candy bars. It's a strange combination, to be sure. 

However, since Eli has been Thrawn's bunkmate since day one, Eli knows about his taste in sweets almost as much as his art theories. Sweets are rare and breathtakingly expensive where Thrawn's from. One can expect them on one's natal day or naming day - the tradition varies - for other milestones or holidays such as 'Long Night' or 'New Spring.' One is required to leave them at the altar for one's ancestors for 'Day of Memory' and as gifts to new mothers.

In fact, Thrawn was not stupefied by anything on Coruscant aside from the academy commissary. All the caf you could drink, open all shifts, and jam packed with enough sweets to pack a  _ Gozanti _ -class from floor to ceiling. Thrawn limited himself strictly, reserving a brisk slap of caffeine and glucose for when he really needed it. However, Eli has discovered the cream of confections, the most decadent combinations of chokkit to ever cross your tongue, and they are sitting in his duffel right now.

Said duffel is on the floor of the shuttle back to the  _ Chimaera _ , and Thrawn's nose has been twitching nonstop. Chiss senses go outside the range of humans, and Eli knows that smell is one of them. So he feigns sleep or plays on his datapad for about twelve hours, watching Thrawn as closely as possible. Eli knows that these confections are actual sex that you put in your mouth. Thrawn, who is a wildly self-controlled sensualist, actually growls when Eli flits out of range in the landing bay. Regular duties of course keep them running at top speed for the next nine hours.

One goes to Commodore Faro - who makes a little sound in the back of her throat and then firmly saves it for later. Captain Hammerly peeks into her little ballotin and moans prettily enough that several crew members look at her in startlement. Lieutenant Pyrondi pops hers out of the box and eats it with little greedy gremlin noises, then she offers to kill anyone Eli cares to name for another one. The whole time, he can see Thrawn practically bending his ears in Eli's direction.

Eli's watch ends and he eludes Thrawn, who has dojo time, and heads back to his quarters. Thrawn actually behaved himself on this trip. He and Grand Admiral Tedoros were the model of socialization (albeit after dire threats), and it was Airal Sevvanes who led Eli to the decadent sweets, assuring that she intended to reward her anti-social admiral appropriately. Eli hears Thrawn enter his quarters, shower, and then pad across the meeting area between their quarters. Eli is reading in bed, covers over his hips, the open box on the bed next to him.

"Eli Vanto. You made three women moan in pleasure." Thrawn is in off-duty loose trousers. "An impressive accomplishment."

"Even more notable as I think all three of them are home team players, but love of chokkit is universal." Eli can see the questions bubble up and stages a diversion by picking up the box and rustling the little gold paper cups with his fingers. "Lieutenant Commander Sevvanes introduced me to the shop, and I couldn't resist." 

Thrawn's glowing red eyes narrow in suspicion, but he comes further into the room. "This would not be an attempt to modify the behavior of Admiral Tedoros and myself? We had reasons to be sociable, considering the TIE-D."

"Nope. Just chokkit. Better than the Mad Moon bars and Black-Eye Caf shots you keep stashed in the ready room." Eli's seen two Black-Eyes and a Mad Moon bar go down when a battle lasts longer than eight hours. At least Thrawn shares - the entire bridge crew was almost vibrating after the battle at Kos-Ferad. "They even have one truffle that's made like a Mad Moon. Three levels of chokkit and a tama fruit filling."

That brings Thrawn further into the room, like a Loth-cat hearing a tin of food, but with a skeptical expression. 

"There's a chokkit filled with cloudberry cream in a ghost-pepper shell." He has seen Thrawn shake Lysatran ghost-pepper sauce on everything coming out of the ship's galleys. Chiss seem to prefer 'hot-DAMN-that's-spicy' to 'need a fire suppressant' levels of seasoning. "The way you were popping stuffed torch-peppers, I thought you might like one."

"They were delicious." Thrawn settles on the edge of the bed. "And this is not an attempt to condition me to more… sociability?"

Eli allows his gaze to roam over Thrawn - no shirt is good - and give more credence to the warmth in his cheeks. "Not a bit of it."

Thrawn looks at Eli's fingers in among the paper wrappers and nods. "I will try one."

Eli gives him the Mad Moon first, and… that's a good look. Thrawn's eyes flutter closed as soon as he bites into it, his cheeks darken, and he makes a sound that Eli associates with sex. It must be something else. "Good?" 

"Good." Thrawn's eyes open and he stretches toward Eli, moving with that slow rock-leopard stalk. "Exceptional."

Eli still gets a little tongue-tied when Thrawn is turned on. "Want another chokkit?"

"No." Thrawn's voice does that half-octave drop that makes Eli's nipples hard. 

You know, he has not done a correlation graph between Thrawn eating chokkit and Eli Vanto being fucked silly. He should do that. The box rests on Eli's chest and Thrawn picks it up, setting it on the night table. There is now a distinct tent in Eli's sheets. Thrawn leans in and nuzzles, one hand gripping Eli's hair, then licks his neck . 

_ Ohdamnthatfeelsgood. _

Keeping his slow pace up the bed, Thrawn cages him with arms and legs. "I already know the taste I want, Eli." 


	28. Earth AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eli's a reporter for the Washington Post with a new assignment - who refuses to be assigned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The word 'thrawn' is an old Scottish word that is not in frequent usage. It means stubborn, obstinate, and other things as well. Also the English and Scots did not use surnames until after the Norman invasion, often taking their new surnames from physical characteristics, parentage, or location. 
> 
> See the following sources:
> 
> https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28088409  
> https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12420571.scots-word-of-the-week-thrawn/  
> https://www.scotslanguage.com/articles/view/id/562

Earth AU

Eli didn't want to cast shade at his new position for the Washington Post. For a guy just a couple of years out of Columbia School of Journalism, and after being injured enough to have to drop out of Annapolis, it was a pretty good spot. Eli was tasked with covering the Ministry of Defence in Westminster. Of course, he had to share a one-bedroom apartment with three other journalists, but he was learning to find functions that served free food and carry one-gallon Zip-locs in his laptop sleeve. 

However, the job also came with its trials, and one of them was a new commodore who apparently hated traveling to London. Based at the mouth of the Clyde in Scotland, the new commodore is the director of the submarine flotilla, and a 'right unsociable bastard' according to overheard rumblings. It was said that the submarine corps was the silent service of any navy, and the new man in charge was doing everything he could to live up to that.

"So, what's his name?" Eli's flatmate asked. Kyle Petersen was a stringer for the New York Times, always hungry, and always broke, but he knew names. "Maybe I have something."

"Commodore Conall Thrawn, OBE, Commodore Submarine Service."

From the lounge, he heard Ainsley Brown whoop in laughter. "Oh, good luck with that one!" 

Eli looked in, surprised. "What do you mean?"

"I'm a Scot, and I'll tell you what Thrawn means. It's a word my gran uses." Ainsley grinned from over the screen of his laptop. "It means stubborn, obstinate. He's perverse, and will fuck with you from a sheer twisted nature that delights in taking the piss with everyone."

Eli protests, "You can't tell all that just from someone's surname, Ainsley. It's like reading tarot cards to tell the future."

Ainsley just laughed. "Now, think about this. When the Normans were handing out surnames, someone looked at this man's ancestor and thought that they'd call his family stubborn bastards for the next thousand years - and nobody changed it."


	29. Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two aides plot to manage their commanding officers.
> 
> [We met Airal Sevvanes in Challenge 8.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27341128/chapters/67145089)

Party

Ascension Week and just fucking shoot him already. At least since Eli got to know Airal Sevvanes he has someone to plot the management of anti-social flag officers and commiserate with. They drank themselves stupid two years ago and spilled all dirty secrets to each other - including being in love/bed with their commanding officers. Sevvannes has since been his survival buddy for every gala and party that pulls in the flag officers just for swank.

They meet by the elevator bank in the flag officers' residence. Commander Airal Sevvanes' mouth is set in a tight line. "We just have one more to get through."

"Then all this bullshit's over for another year." Eli takes a deep breath. "He's planning something."

"Admirals are always planning something, Eli - it's the nature of the beast." 

Eli nods. It's true - every waking minute Thrawn's brain is at high alert. "Do you have your checklist?"

Airal pulls out her datapad. "Spare dress uniforms, kits, and boots hidden."

"Check."

"Removed all potential items of destruction."

"Check."

"Comm on intercept and screening messages."

"Check."

"Exits alarmed and activated."

"Check."

"Chokkit."

"Check and check because that is some gooood chokkit."

"Going to lay these fractious and devious bastards until they're so mellow they'd hop in the hellbound handbasket with smiles on their faces."

"Hellyeah." Eli holds out his fist for a bump and receives dap in return. 

"I owe you a night out and so much booze for coordinating with me. I am serious. Things are getting weird." Sevvanes looks at him frankly. She's a Kuati, daughter to a retired admiral, and a straight shooter, but a loyal officer. "You feel me?"

"Yeah. Every year these parties are just more over the top." Eli redirects. "Just get me out on the line where we know who the bad guys are."

"Aye that. Heard about yours taking a broom to the Marillion Belts when Kuat got the ISD  _ Darkhammer  _ and the corvette _ White Widow _ in." Sevvanes laughs. "The  _ Morningstar  _ was in around the same time and we got some tales!"

Eli puffs with pride. "It was a nitpicky and fucking aggravating campaign. There were a couple of times that I wanted to advocate just blowing enough Clouzon-36 to draw in the grallocks and mynocks and let the rebs have it."

"Oh, that's a fine idea." Sevvanes mock-waved bye-bye. "Vermin, meet vermin. Have fuuuun!" 

He likes Sevvanes, and even likes Grand Admiral Tedoros - who managed to get to that rank even if he's even more antisocial than Thrawn. "I'll buy you dinner - they have a Lysatran grill in Little Wild and the meat's fresh. Nothing from a tank."

"You're on - as long as I buy the booze."

"Now, Thrawn, isn't that adorable?" Tedoros rasps behind them. "They're playing together." 

"Indeed. Playing, Grand Admiral Tedoros, because they wouldn't be plotting to manage us - would they?"

_ Oh. Fuck my life. _ The thought flies across Eli's frontal lobes as his life flashes before his eyes.

Sevvanes actually says it out loud, pulling her cap down over her face.

"No, not at all. After all, they are still frisky young pups up against a pair of old war dogs." Tedoros and Thrawn saunter - saunter! - to face their aides. "Though I believe that a refresher course is in order."

"Just a refresher to clear up any doubts," Thrawn agrees, his hand closing on Eli's shoulder. "About who is actually in charge of whom."

Eli's cock is not listening to Eli's brain on that one.

"Indeed, indeed. I expect this to take all night, wouldn't you say?" The Grand Admiral chuckles. "Commander Sevvanes, about face - you will need to move your cap to see where you're going - goodness, you're so flushed. You may need to lie down."

"Perhaps after the refresher course concludes we could try that grill." Thrawn suggests. "It would be good to sit down to dinner instead of endless standing around and prattling."

Eli might have an issue with the sitting down part. 

"Excellent. Commander Sevvanes will contact Commander Vanto. Until this tomorrow, Thrawn, Commander." 

Eli and Thrawn both straighten to attention as Tedoros ushers Sevvanes away, his hand on the small of her back.

"Eli Vanto. About face. Forward march." Thrawn purrs, not removing his hand from Eli's shoulder as he opens the door. "Straight into my room and onto my bed. Leave your comm in your belt pouch, you are going to be far too busy to answer."


	30. Rumours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are always rumors. At every level of the Ascendancy it's almost a currency. Despite the political class and Families' penchant for gossiping about everyone and everything, the shields surrounding Raw'nuru and Kiwu'eli'vanto are seamless and impenetrable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised y'all a wedding.

Rumors

_There are always rumors. At every level of the Ascendancy it's almost a currency. Despite the political class and Families' penchant for gossiping about everyone and everything, the shields surrounding Raw'nuru and Kiwu'eli'vanto are seamless and impenetrable. They admit nothing, those around them hold their privacy as sacred as the earth under the ice of Csilla. However, everyone knows something's afoot when the two admirals return to Cspalar._

~

"We bring you here, our beloved kin, to bind your lives together." Ar'alani intones, her hand on Rawn's shoulder. They wear solid white dress robes, each lined in pure black wit'ama fur.

Tro'owmis faces them, her hand on Eli's shoulder, Uun'hee beside her adoptive father. Un'hee and Eli wear the bright copper robes of the Kiwu family slashed with the black of the CEDF, while Tro'owmis wears a robe like Ar'alani and Rawn. "Speak your vows with open souls, and be bound to one another."

~

_Ar'alani and Tro'owmis agree on it. The Kiwu gain Eli'van'to and Un'hee and agree to the match, while the fleet is Rawn's official family. Since there would be no blood children of the union, the life-binding between two male officers (the junior would be raised in rank shortly) could go forward. The Kivu raise hell, saying that the Ascendancy and the Nine had done for two of their born babes and the line of Kivu'risa'ilian and Kivu'rhal'nuru would effectively end without Vurawn. The Mitth complain that his DNA has not flowed into the bloodline in sufficient quantity - as if that's Rawn's doing. Negotiations with the two families are entered into, and resolved._

~

In Cheunh, a baritone and tenor speak the words as old as the ice itself. The vows are not made to a god or the Force, nor to the company present, but to one another.

"I give myself to you as shelter against the storms of the Chaos, as the fire that warms you in the heart of winter, as the arms that will hold and defend you for the rest of our days."

~

_As women are the ones who bring new life into the Ascendancy, so in Chiss society do women preside over a life-binding. Ar'alani made Rawn's rope from black silk for the CEDF, a white cord binding it for his rank. Uunhee and Tro'owmis made Eli's from Kivu copper-orange silk, bound with a black cord. With the Chiss, a life-binding is made with only the pair seeking the life-binding and their nearest female relatives. There are no parties, no priests, no relatives getting drunk at the reception - a relief once Eli described the nonsense that surrounded human binding rites._

~

"You I will honor first in all things, for all the days that I live and breathe. Let us never be parted as true companion souls to one another from this day forward. For though we are two, let us speak and act as one."

Uun'hee - who will be daughter to both - knots the colored silk ropes to Rawn's and Eli's wrist, wrapping the Kiwu colors up Rawn's arm and the CEDF colors up her father's. Auntie Ar'alani and Auntie Woot tie the knots at each shoulder and all three place their hands on Rawn and Eli. 

"I, Ar'alani, do so witness this binding. Live in honor all the days of your lives together."

"I, Tro'owmis, do so witness this binding. Live in peace for all the days of your lives together."

"I, Kiwu'un'hee, daughter of Kiwu'eli'vanto, daughter to Raw'nuru, do witness this binding. Live in joy for all the days of your lives together.

"Through best and worst, through peace and battles, through life and death, I will be yours and you will be mine."

"So it is, and so shall it be."

"So it is, and so shall it be."

"So it is, and so shall it be."


End file.
